Word: frigid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Frigid Vise. On its long voyage the Manhattan must negotiate some of the world's most hazardous waters. Temperatures in the Arctic drop as low as 75° below zero. Howling winds and raging seas build up pressure ridges of ice that tower 30 ft. above the surface and reach 100 ft. below. Grinding pack ice can lock an ordinary ship into a frigid vise for months or crush its hull like a beer...
...useful drug, cephalothin (which is effective against many germs that are resistant to penicillin), has already been developed from a mold that was recovered near a sewer outlet in the sea off Sardinia. The search, recently intensified, extends from the Sea of Japan to the frigid waters of Antarctica, from the tepid shallows of coral reefs in the Caribbean to the far-western Pacific...
...clang of cymbals and drums, China plunged into a pandemonium of celebrations. From humid, semitropical Yunnan to frigid Heilungkiang, millions of Chinese paraded through cities and towns, waving the little red books of Mao Tse-tung's quotations and chanting "Long life to Chairman Mao!" Many carried sunflowers as symbols of loyalty to a man whom his followers revere as "the red sun in our hearts." The occasion was, according to its official title, "The Ninth National Congress of the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China...
...point, the harp seals of maritime Canada live fortuitous lives. The gray-tan harp-so called because of a harp-shaped black blotch on its back-cannot swim at birth and dies if whelped into the frigid ocean off Labrador. By a generous natural coincidence, however, whelping occurs just as spring thaws begin to break up the winter ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Taking advantage of the breakup, pregnant cows among the 800,000 harps make their way south. Swimming down the Labrador coast and through the Strait of Belle Isle, they enter the broad Gulf...
Some of the language was developed to cushion tragedy: everybody feared having their sheep frozen or starved by a sudden change in the weather. That was too big a disaster just to report baldly, so they would say "That frigid perel [cold rain, which resembles little pearls] made many white spots [dead lambs]. There'll be nemer croppies [no more sheep, which crop the grass] come boche season [boche, meaning deer, is derived from a Pomo word...