Word.ws English Dictionary

antarctic

/ænˈtɑːktɪk//ænˈtɑː(k)tɪk/

antarctic is the alternative spelling of Antarctic.

Adjective capitalized: Antarctic

Antarctic (comparative more Antarctic, superlative most Antarctic)

  1. Of, from, or pertaining to Antarctica and the south polar regions.
    • We are likely to consider Antarctic English as an occupational variety of general English rather than a new regional variety, mainly because men go to work in the Antarctic for a period, intending to return. They are not settlers.1972, George William Turner, The English Language in Australia and New Zealand, Longman, →ISBN, page 67
    • Scientists have known for years that the Thwaites glacier is the soft underbelly of the Antarctic ice sheet, and first found that it was unstable decades ago.2014 May 12, Suzanne Goldenberg, “Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn”, in The Guardian
  2. (figuratively, obsolete) Opposite, contradictory.
  3. (obsolete) Southern.

Proper noun capitalized: Antarctic

Antarctic

  1. A continental region, one of the major ecozones of the world, covering the south polar regions, especially those south of the Antarctic Convergence; or, in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty System, the 60th parallel south.
    • Meronyms: Antarctica, Antarctic Ocean, Southern Ocean (south-of-60° sense)

Forms of antarctic

comparativemore antarctic
superlativemost antarctic
comparativemore Antarctic
superlativemost Antarctic
alternative formantarctic

Origin of antarctic

From Middle English antartik, antartyk, from Middle French antartique, from Latin antarcticus, from Ancient Greek ἀνταρκτικός (antarktikós), from ἀντί (antí, “opposite”) + ἀρκτικός (arktikós, “Arctic”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”). By surface analysis, anti- + Arctic.

Words formed from antarctic

Phrases with antarctic

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with antarctic

Questions about antarctic

What does antarctic mean?
Antarctic means of, from, or pertaining to Antarctica and the south polar regions.
What is antarctic the alternative spelling of?
Antarctic is the alternative spelling of Antarctic.
What part of speech is antarctic?
Antarctic can be an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce antarctic?
Antarctic is pronounced /ænˈtɑːktɪk/.

Words near antarctic in the dictionary

  1. antarafacially
  2. antarakalpa
  3. antarakalpas
  4. antarchism
  5. Antarctalian
  6. antarctic
  7. Antarctic 10
  8. Antarctic 10s
  9. Antarctic beech
  10. Antarctic beeches
  11. Antarctic Circle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antarctic (page history and authors); Antarctic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-antarctic.oga, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Antarctic.wav.

Cite this entry: “antarctic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/antarctic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.