Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

ice cream headache

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.85 in modern English

Syllables: ice cream -headache
IPA

31

Scrabble Score

16

Letters

2

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A type of headache caused by cold around the brain, either at the back of the throat when eating ice cream (as the name suggests), or from cold around the outside of the head.

Example Sentences

"In my wilder days as a winter surfer we all knew about the sickening frontal headache that resulted within seconds of driving through a breaking wave. The pain continued for 20 to 30 seconds, only to be reinforced by the next breaking wave. Even then (35 years ago) we always referred to the pain as the ice cream headache."
"What most of us learn as children to call a brain freeze or ice cream headache is referred to by scientists as a cold-stimulus headache, Starling says. […] Irene Toldo, a professor of child neurology and psychiatry at the University of Padua in Italy, and her colleagues examined four decades of scientific study on ice cream headaches to find out. (She's partial to liquorice gelato.)"

Inflected Forms

ice cream headaches (plural) ice-cream headache (alternative) icecream headache (alternative)

Synonyms

brain freeze

Questions

What does ice cream headache mean?: A type of headache caused by cold around the brain, either at the back of the throat when eating ice cream (as the name suggests), or from cold around the outside of the head.

How to pronounce ice cream headache

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