antarctica
/æntˈɑɹ(k)tɪkə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.53 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The southernmost continent, south of the Southern Ocean, containing the South Pole.
name
the Antarctic
Example Sentences
- "The five largest islands or peninsulas in which the crests of the World Ridges break through the uniform covering of the hydrosphere are termed continents, and designated by the names Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. They are distinguished from other islands and peninsulas by size alone, Australia being ten times larger than New Guinea, and Africa ten times larger than Arabia, these being the greatest island and peninsula not called continents. The elevated region round the South Pole is crowned by the unexplored and scarcely discovered continent of Antarctica."
- "Dr. Murray believes that Alexander I. Land is a part of the west coast of Graham's Land, and that this landmass, which Biscoe and Larsen proved to widen rapidly toward the south, is only a peninsula of the continent of Antarctica."
- "To most people, the huge ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are merely water that once was snow. To glaciologists and climatologists, they are storehouses of the Earth's former atmospheres."
- "The project poses exceptional challenges, given that Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent on Earth, as well as the most remote and inaccessible, being almost totally covered by a vast ice sheet."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Antarctica, ἀνταρκτικός
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /æntˈɑɹ(k)tɪkə/
- British English: /ˌænˈtɑːktɪkə/