Arctic

• arctic

From Middle French artique (with -c- reintroduced after Latin in the 17th century), from Latin arcticus, from Ancient Greek ἀρκτικός (arktikós, “northern, of the (Great) Bear”), from ἄρκτος (árktos, “bear, Ursa Major”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos (“bear”). Cognate to Latin ursus.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɑː(k)tɪk/ (see Usage notes)
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑɹ(k)tɪk/ (see Usage notes)

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tɪk, -ɑː(ɹ)ktɪk

Arctic (not comparable)

1. (astronomy, now only in compounds) Pertaining to the celestial north pole, or to the pole star. [from 14th c.]
2. (geography) Pertaining to the northern polar region of the planet, characterised by extreme cold and an icy landscape. [from 16th c.]
   • 1594 (first publication), Christopher Marlow[e], The Trovblesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edvvard the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     What neede the artick people loue star-light,
     To whom the sunne shines both by day and night.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 706-711:

     […] on th’ other side
     Incenc’t with indignation Satan stood
     Unterrifi’d, and like a Comet burn’d,
     That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
     In th’ Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair
     Shakes Pestilence and Warr.

   • 1788, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Humanity, or the Rights of Nature‎, London: T. Cadell, Book 2, p. 96:

     See FREEDOM smiling thro’ the realms of frost,
     And glow on Labradore’s inclement coast,
     Tho’ darkness sheds deep night thro’ half the year,
     And snow invests the clime,—that clime is dear,
     For there fair LIBERTY resides, and there
     At large the native breasts the searching air,
     Where blows the arctic tempests icy gale,
     And famine seizes on the spermy whale,

   • 1968, Robert Conquest, “A Nation in Torment”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties‎, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 327:

     A medical examination determined who was to be sent on to Norilsk in the Arctic.

3. Extremely cold, snowy, or having other properties of extreme winter associated with the Arctic. [from 16th c.]
   • 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 45:

     ‘Could you close that window, please!’ Strickland called, dialling again. ‘It's bloody arctic down this end.’

4. Designed for use in very cold conditions. [from 19th c.]

• Like Antarctic, the English word was originally pronounced without /k/, but the spelling pronunciation has become the more common one. The "c" was originally added to the spelling for etymological reasons, and its pronunciation followed thereafter.

Arctic

1. (obsolete) The north celestial pole. [15th–17th c.]
2. (geography) The region of the Earth above the Arctic Circle, containing the North Pole. [from 17th c.]
   • 1772, Richard Cumberland, The Fashionable Lover‎, London: W. Griffin, act IV, page 46:

     I’ve visited the world from arctic to ecliptic, as a surgeon does a hospital, and find all men sick of some distemper […]

Arctic (plural Arctics)

1. (US, now chiefly historical) A warm waterproof overshoe. [from 19th c.]
2. Any of various butterflies of the genus Oeneis. [from 20th c.]

• -cratic, cratic