/ English Dictionary

THAW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A relaxation or slackening of tensions or reserve; becoming less hostile

Example:

the thaw between the United States and Russia has led to increased cooperation in world affairs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("thaw" is a kind of...):

loosening; relaxation; slackening (an occurrence of control or strength weakening)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Warm weather following a freeze; snow and ice melt

Example:

they welcomed the spring thaw

Synonyms:

thaw; thawing; warming

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("thaw" is a kind of...):

atmospheric condition; conditions; weather; weather condition (the atmospheric conditions that comprise the state of the atmosphere in terms of temperature and wind and clouds and precipitation)

Derivation:

thaw (become or cause to become soft or liquid)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The process whereby heat changes something from a solid to a liquid

Example:

the thawing of a frozen turkey takes several hours

Synonyms:

melt; melting; thaw; thawing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("thaw" is a kind of...):

heating; warming (the process of becoming warmer; a rising temperature)

phase change; phase transition; physical change; state change (a change from one state (solid or liquid or gas) to another without a change in chemical composition)

Derivation:

thaw (become or cause to become soft or liquid)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become or cause to become soft or liquid

Example:

dethaw the meat

Synonyms:

dethaw; dissolve; melt; thaw; unfreeze; unthaw

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "thaw" is one way to...):

flux; liquefy; liquify (become liquid or fluid when heated)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "thaw"):

deliquesce (melt or become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air)

de-ice; defrost; deice (make or become free of frost or ice)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

The chefs thaw the vegetables

Derivation:

thaw (warm weather following a freeze; snow and ice melt)

thaw; thawing (the process whereby heat changes something from a solid to a liquid)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The main tissue block remains unchanged and is not chemically treated or thawed, which allows for extraction and analysis of high quality DNA, RNA, or protein.

(Laser Cryo Enrichment, NCI Thesaurus)

The findings showed no mineralogical evidence for abundant liquid water or its by-products, thus pointing to mechanisms other than the flow of water — such as the freeze and thaw of carbon dioxide frost — as being the major drivers of recent gully evolution.

(Mars Gullies Likely Not Formed by Liquid Water, NASA)

The ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Then up rose from the hill in the rugged Cantabrian valley a sound such as had not been heard in those parts before, nor was again, until the streams which rippled amid the rocks had been frozen by over four hundred winters and thawed by as many returning springs.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, does not easily see daylight again.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

These lakes are being fertilized by thawing yedoma permafrost.

(Certain Arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they release, NSF)

When the fire had burned for an hour, several inches of dirt had thawed.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed down through the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The study found that warmer, more southerly permafrost regions will not become a carbon source until the end of the 22nd century, even though they are thawing now.

(Far Northern Permafrost May Unleash Carbon Within Decades, NASA)

The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

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