Meaning & use
ice bear
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Meanings
nouncountable
Another name for a polar bear, the large white bear of the Arctic.
Grammar: Countable, with a plural of ice bears.
Patterns
- an ice bear on the sea ice
An ice bear padded across the frozen bay.
The children read a story about an ice bear and her cub.
Ice bears hunt seals from drifting floes.
nounproperinformal
The name of a fictional cartoon bear character, usually written with capitals.
Grammar: As a name, it is capitalized: Ice Bear.
My little brother's favorite cartoon character is Ice Bear.
Ice Bear is known for his quiet, flat way of speaking.
She dressed up as Ice Bear for the costume party.
Word forms
| plural | ice bears |
|---|
Common combinations
- a hungry ice bear
- A hungry ice bear circled the research camp.
- ice bear cub
- The ice bear cub stayed close to its mother.
- ice bear habitat
- Melting ice shrinks the ice bear habitat.
- hunting ice bear
- A hunting ice bear can wait hours at a seal hole.
Synonyms and how they differ
- polar bear
- Polar bear is the standard name used in science and news, whereas ice bear is a descriptive, informal variant.
- white bear
- White bear is a plain descriptive name that appears more often in stories and translations.
- sea bear
- Sea bear is an old term for polar bear, now rare.
Word family
Commonly confused: ice bear or ice bear / Ice Bear?
ice bear vs ice bear / Ice Bear
A lower-case ice bear is a real animal, while the capitalized Ice Bear is a cartoon character.
Practice
Which animal is an 'ice bear' in everyday descriptive use?
Choose one answer.
Ice bear is an informal name for the polar bear, which lives on Arctic sea ice. The others are different animals.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ice bear”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.