Ice-shelf

Full definition of ice-shelf

Noun

• 1931, H. P. Lovecraft , At the Mountains of Madness, All planes reached the old base on the eventing of the next day —January 27th—after a swift non-stop flight; and on the 28th we made McMurdo Sound in two laps, the one pause being very brief, and occasioned by a faulty rudder in the furious wind over the ice-shelf after we had cleared the great plateau.
• 2000 , Orson Scott Card , Future On Ice, But he found no Alaloi, and he urged his dogs carefully across the crevasses of the Fairleigh ice-shelf, back out onto the sea.
• 2009 , Ranulph Fiennes , Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, Thunderous roars warned us that the whole ice-shelf had entered a hyperactive phase, causing hitherto safe snow-bridges to collapse all around us into their crevasses.

Usage notes

The hyphenated form is usually used attributively.