frost
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Ice crystals forming a white deposit.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
frawstIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɹɔst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A cover of minute ice crystals on objects that are exposed to the air. Frost is formed by the same process as dew, except that the temperature of the frosted object is below freezing.
Ice crystals forming a white deposit (especially on objects outside)
The cold weather that causes these ice crystals to form.
figurative
Coldness or insensibility; severity or rigidity of character.
United States poet famous for his lyrical poems on country life in New England (1874-1963)
A number of places in the United States
verb
transitive
To sharpen (the points of a horse's shoe) to prevent it from slipping on ice.
transitive
To bleach individual strands of hair while leaving adjacent strands untouched.
transitiveinformal
To anger or annoy.
Damage by frost
“The icy precipitation frosted the flowers and they turned brown.”
intransitive
To become covered with frost.
transitive
To coat (something, e.g. a cake) with icing to resemble frost.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A cover of minute ice crystals on objects that are exposed to the air. Frost is formed by the same process as dew, except that the temperature of the frosted object is below freezing.
Used this way, frost is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- hoarfrost , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A flavored sugar topping used to coat and decorate cakes.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Upthrust of ground or pavement caused by the freezing of moist soil.
Small crystals of ice.
Become covered with a layer of ice.
Small crystals of ice.
Perennial of the eastern United States having early solitary yellow flowers followed by late petalless flowers.
Common Eurasian bat with white-tipped hairs in its coat.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.