n. — Newfoundland, Arctic, Outdoors
this year's ice; ice formed over one winter in a bay or harbour.
Type: 2. Preservation — The Newfoundland meaning of the term bay ice (see DNE, s.v. "bay" (n.)) is likely a preservation from British English. Brockett (1846: 29) claims that bay ice originally derived from a verb form of bay meaning 'to bend' and was thus 'ice thin enough to bend'. However, in the early 1800s, many English and American explorers navigated the passage between Greenland and Baffin Island, just north of Newfoundland and Labrador. This surge in travel around the Arctic region seems to have resulted in several terms describing ice conditions, and so bay ice was semantically narrowed to refer specifically to recently formed ice (see Dodsley 1822: 1324 & Kane 1854: 109). Because of Newfoundland's proximity to these expeditions, as well as exposure to whalers with extensive nautical terminology, bay ice transferred into local vocabulary (see the 1923 quotation).
See also COD-2, s.v. "bay ice", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)", Gage-5, s.v. "bay ice", which is marked "Cdn.".
See also: pancake ice young ice
- Note that this meaning of bay ice is not the same as the ice formed on the bays of the Great Lakes in the winter, or in other places, e.g. "skating on the bay ice is at your own risk" is a different meaning.