ice needle

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ice needle

n.
A thin ice crystal floating high in the atmosphere in certain conditions of clear, cold weather.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ice needle

n
(Physical Geography) meteorol one of many needle-like ice crystals that form cirrus clouds in clear cold weather
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ice′ nee`dle


n.
an acicular ice crystal afloat in the atmosphere.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.ice needle - small crystals of iceice needle - small crystals of ice    
diamond dust, frost mist, frost snow, ice crystal, poudrin, snow mist
downfall, precipitation - the falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist)
H2O, water - binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent
crystal - a solid formed by the solidification of a chemical and having a highly regular atomic structure
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References in periodicals archive
Ice needle. A long, thin crystal whose cross-section is typically hexagonal.
Pole vaulting
An "ice needle" would poke a hole in the ice for a long, hooked "ice measure" that would hook on the bottom of the ice and give an exact measurement of thickness, Mr.
Frozen in time Ice holds tales of bygone era
Lunar coronas can occur in almost any cloud which is not so opaque as to hide the Moon altogether, but most of them are caused by clouds with water droplets, only some of them by high clouds with ice needles. And, instead of being caused by reflection and refraction (bending) of light by ice crystals (as is the case with halos), coronas are caused by a process called "diff-raction." Diffraction occurs when a tiny aperture (like a pinhole) or particle (like a cloud droplet or ice needle edge) is similar in size to the wavelengths of light.
Autumn acorn
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