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Freezing point   /frˈizɪŋ pɔɪnt/   Listen
Freezing point

noun
1.
The temperature below which a liquid turns into a solid.  Synonym: melting point.






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"Freezing point" Quotes from Famous Books



... success. In the month of February, while Mr. Norton and his men were at work on the Myan River, the thermometer indicated more than forty degrees below zero during sixteen days out of twenty-one, sank five times to -60 deg. and once to -68 deg., or one hundred degrees below the freezing point of water. Cutting poles on snow-shoes, in a temperature ranging from 40 deg. to 60 deg. below zero is, in itself, no slight trial of men's hardihood; but when to this are added the sufferings of hunger and the peril of utter starvation ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... loose, and can't explain to the chauffeur. What was it? The Boy's absence? Nonsense; he didn't want me, rather the contrary. Why should I want him? A few weeks ago I had not known that he existed. I drank a pint of dry champagne, iced almost to freezing point; but instead of hardening my heart against the ex-Brat, to my annoyance the sparkling liquid gradually but ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... missionaries, and suffer the schools abroad to be disbanded. The truth is, in the scale of giving, the church as a body (I say nothing of individuals or of particular churches) has scarcely risen in its feeling above the freezing point. What they now contribute is a mere fraction ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... of the horses broke away from the guard and went back to the ford. The next day better camping-ground was reached ten miles farther on. On the morning of the 8th the thermometer marked forty-four degrees below freezing point; but in this weather and through deep snow the men made eighteen miles, and the following day nineteen miles, to the next camping-grounds on Bitter Creek, and in the valley of Sweetwater. On the 10th matters were still worse. Herders left to bring up the rear ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... of temperature creates the sensation of coldness after the late mild weather, although the thermometer, examined at 8 o'clock, has not fallen below 26 deg., but six degrees below the freezing point. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... spectacle with thrilling pride. He could have enjoyed the show but for the bitter cold. It was twenty degrees below the freezing point, and while the battle raged between the fleet and fort it began to sleet and snow. When the crippled boats at last drifted down the yellow tide and out of range, he found to his amazement that a thick coat of ice had formed on the hand in which he held his musket. His clothes were ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Ross is mild. Reaumur's thermometer seldom falls to the freezing point; yet gardens cannot flourish, on account of the frequent fogs. Some wersts farther inland, beyond the injurious influence of the fog, plants of the warmest climates prosper surprisingly. Cucumbers of fifty pounds' ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... more than a century. Electricity, of course, failed and the heat in his fine furnace dwindled and died. It grew colder and colder, ultimately reaching twenty degrees below zero. Added to the discomfort of the family was the disquieting knowledge that the freezing point would mean cracked radiators. Luckily he had three fireplaces that really worked. He had plenty of wood. So for three days and nights, he and two other members of his family worked in relays to keep roaring fires going in all three fireplaces. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... eight feet high, in double rows, with boards to keep them apart, in cool cellars, which are built half out of ground. The temperature of these, by the judicious opening and closing of windows, is kept as nearly as possibly at the freezing point. The common practice in the North, when many thousands are to be stored for winter and spring sales, is to select a southern exposure having the protection of a fence or wall, if practicable, and, turning furrows with the plough, throw out the earth with shovels, to the depth of about ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory

... the sun-heat it now receives, what would then be the probable mean temperature of the South of England? The majority would, I think, answer at once—About 24 deg. F. Nearly as many would perhaps say—48 deg. F. is 16 deg. above the freezing point; therefore half the heat received would bring us down to 8 deg. above the freezing point, or 40 deg. F. Very few, I think, would realise that our share of half the amount of sun-heat received by the earth ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace

... convenient means of keeping foods in good condition. As is well known, it is a device that, by means of air cooled by the melting of ice or in some other manner, keeps food at a temperature near the freezing point. All refrigerators are constructed in a similar manner, having two or more layers of wood between which is placed an insulating material, such as cork, asbestos, or mineral wool. The food compartments are lined with ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... and, last of all, a leaf of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant, the corm of which was doubtless hidden among the roots of the Ferns. So, while the cold winds are blowing, snow is yet on the ground, and the thermometer registers several degrees lower than the freezing point, I have a little bit of summer where, at my leisure, I may study the development of fifteen species of plants, at the same time admiring their delicate beauty and inhaling the odor ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... comparatively cool and moist seasons are more favorable to success that hot, dry weather. In America the worms suffer in the early spring, from the rapid changes of temperature, 40 deg. at 9 A.M. increasing to 70 deg. in the afternoon and falling off to freezing point during the night. The worms cannot stand this. They become torpid, refuse to eat, and consequently die. To prevent this, if the nights be cold, they must be placed where no such change of ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... snowballs probably few know what occurs during the process. Under ordinary conditions water turns to ice when the temperature falls to 32 degrees, but when in motion, or under pressure, much lower temperatures are required to make it a solid. In the same way, ice which is somewhat below the freezing point can be made liquid by applying pressure, and will remain liquid until the pressure is removed, when it will again return to its original state. Snow, being simply finely divided ice, becomes liquid in places when compressed by the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... reduced from about seventeen degrees of hardness, to three degrees of hardness. It yields a lather immediately. Its temperature is constant throughout the year. In the hottest summer it is cool, its temperature being twenty degrees above the freezing point; and it does not freeze in winter if conveyed in proper pipes. The reservoirs are covered; a leaf cannot blow into them, and no surface contamination can reach the water. It passes direct from the main into the house ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... cavern before which a large fire gave such warmth, that, in passing the night there in my cloak, I was quite insensible to a frost without, which, at the camp, at 4 P. M., had lowered the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer to 22 deg., or 10 deg. below the freezing point. ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... be seen. Most dwellings were in couples, enclosed in a circular wall for protection against the wind as well as from the observation of intruders. Although a cold wind was blowing fiercely at the time, and the thermometer was only four degrees above freezing point, there were some twenty children playing about perfectly naked, and they seemed ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... strange winter fair is now in the Royston Institute Museum. Houses were in many cases snowed up, and the difficulties of traffic were enormous. Large gangs of labourers toiled at mountains of snow in order to open up the coaching routes. When the frost was 20 deg. below freezing point, Benjamin Dunham, seventy years of age, was found frozen to death ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... here, is a point not easily determined. Such ice is found in the Greenland seas all the summer long; and I think it cannot be colder there in the summer, than it is here. Be this as it may, we certainly had no thaw; on the contrary, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer kept generally below the freezing point, although it was the middle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... 1862.) It is certain that ice in this form plays an active part every winter in giving motion to stones and gravel in the beds of rivers in European Russia and Siberia. It appears that when in those countries the streams are reduced nearly to the freezing point, congelation begins frequently at the bottom; the reason being, according to Arago, that the current is slowest there, and the gravel and large stones, having parted with much of their heat by radiation, acquire ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... instances which the world has seen for several centuries, of the unexpected and incalculable forces which lie hid in man? Believe me, man's passions, heated to igniting point, rather than his prudence cooled down to freezing point, are the normal causes of all great human movement. And a truer law of social science than any that political economists are wont to lay down, is that old Dov' e la donna? of the Italian judge, who used to ask, as a preliminary to every case, civil or criminal, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... the Adelaide plains. The summer, which may be termed warm and dry, usually extends over, say, five months; and during the remainder of the year the climate is simply perfect. The temperature in mid-winter over the Adelaide plains rarely, if ever, reaches the freezing point, although there may be sharp frosts, and on still clear nights, so frequently experienced, copious dews. On the ranges, and on the high lying plains 150 miles north of Adelaide, lower temperatures are reached, indeed in some years there have been ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... they ordered a rump and dozen, being confident that as the day was bitterly cold, and the snow some feet deep upon the ground, the courage of the rioters would be cooled before they had finished dinner; and so it was, for towards evening, the temperature having descended considerably beneath the freezing point, the mob, who had now exhausted their beer and gin, and who saw that there was no more fun to be expected for the day, began to disperse each man to his home, so that before nightfall the coast was clear; on which the justices, with the posse comitatus, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... the temperature of the water is at its freezing point, and that of the air below that point; the surface of the water must be exposed to the air, and there must be a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... toward ships, suddenly stopped, seemed to blur and their features ran together horribly. They fell—and were dead in an instant as the air disappeared. In another instant they were solid blocks of ice, for the temperature was below the freezing point of carbon dioxide. ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... deg.. The average highest temperature in July and August is between 91 deg. and 92 deg.. In the mountainous regions of the interior there is a noticeable difference in temperature; it is necessary to sleep under a blanket every night of the year and the temperature sometimes falls below the freezing point. The pleasantest months of the year are ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... animals lived. Gmelin has seen the inhabitants of Jeniseisk under the 58th degree of northern latitude, sustaining a degree of cold, which in January became so severe, that the spirit in the thermometer was 126 degrees below the freezing point. Professor Pallas in Siberia, and our countrymen at Hudson's Bay, have experienced a degree of cold almost equal to this. All these facts tend to prove, that the heat of animals continues without alteration in very different temperatures. Hence it is evident that ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... mail-order catalog, arrived, Ida Mary cried with disappointment and then began to laugh. It was so small we could not tell whether it was a round heater or a bulge in the stovepipe. With it the temperature of the room ran automatically from roasting to freezing point unless one ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... knew that Iceland was mountainous in its interior, but I had no idea that it had such a magnificent coast line, or such towering snow-capped hills. One thing we made special note of, namely, that while in the day time the thermometer rarely stood above 42°—10 above freezing point—it was very considerably lower at night, whilst instead of the damp cold we experienced during the day, at night the air was dry and frosty; the wind blowing from the north-west, and straight ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... reference to the meter. In conformity with this decimal law, the quadrant was divided, for astronomical purposes, into 100 degrees instead of 90; and the thermometer likewise into 100 degrees from the boiling to the freezing point. At the same time, a system of reckoning money by tens was introduced; and it must be owned, that the whole system of computation in weights, measures, and money established in France at this period, is one of the greatest triumphs of civilisation. In ordinary ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... of this vain school, But one, whom Doubt itself hath failed to cool Down to that freezing point where Priests despair Of any spark from the altar catching there— Hath, some nights since—it was, me thinks, the night That followed the full Moon's great annual rite— Thro' the dark, winding ducts that downward stray To these earth—hidden ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... which the white juice is handled. The juice passes from the pasteurizer while still hot (about 160 deg. F.) into the container, which should be sealed immediately. The lower the temperature (above the freezing point) at which these containers are then stored, the less is the danger of fermentation and the more rapidly the juice will clear ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... "Heeland" woman. We were painfully struck by the number of paupers and intoxicated females in the streets; and some of our party saw, for the first time in their lives, white women shoeless, and shivering in scanty rags, which scarcely concealed their nakedness, with the thermometer at the freezing point. Whitaker's British Almanac publishes, statistically, the drinking propensities of the population of the three kingdoms, from which it appears that there were consumed per head ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... temperature nearly equal to the mean of what had been experienced on the four preceding voyages, but the winters of 1830 and 1831 set in with a degree of violence hitherto beyond record—the thermometer sunk to 92 degrees below the freezing point, and the average of the year was 10 degrees below the preceding; but notwithstanding the severity of the summer, we travelled across the country to the west sea by a chain of lakes, 30 miles north of the isthmus, when Commander Ross ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... conversation is only kept up by monosyllables, in spite of the incredible efforts of all parties to appear unconcerned. The young man in his confusion plunges deeper into the mire;—he twists and writhes in secret agony—remarks on the sultriness of the weather, though the thermometer is below the freezing point; and commits a thousand gaucheries—too happy if he can escape from a situation than which nothing can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... part of the water produced by these angles thus dissolved is absorbed into the body of the hailstone, as may be seen by holding a lump of snow over a candle, and there becomes frozen into ice by the quantity of cold which the hailstone possesses beneath the freezing point, or which is produced by its quick evaporation in falling; and thus hailstones are often found of greater or less density according as they consist of a greater portion of snow or ice. If hailstones consisted of the large drops of showers frozen in their descent, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... rain and searched one's very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home. Sometimes the temperature fell below the freezing point, and occasionally we had sleet, hail or snow for variety. Tents were often blown down by the hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight watching a small army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of the large mess tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... nineteenth, the temperature was four degrees below the freezing point, and the ground was stiff with frost. In a further search on the north side of the lake opposite our camp we found an old blaze and a trail leading from it along a ridge and through marshes to a small lake. This was the only trail that ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... in the same place of honor was an identical photograph, a little Japanese brunette, with a descending puff and an ascending nose. They stood staring at each other, and the temperature of the room seemed to recede towards the freezing point. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... prove that the velocity of development of animal life in Arctic regions, where the temperature is near the freezing point of water, must be from two to three times smaller than in regions where the temperature of the ocean is about 10 deg C. and from four to nine times smaller than in seas the temperature of which is about 20 deg ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... thing itself. I have seen the ice in the Mississippi floating past the mouth of the Arkansas river; and at Memphis, but a little way above, the Mississippi has been frozen over, from bank to bank. But they have never had a cold spell in Sydney which brought the mercury down to freezing point. Once in a mid-winter day there, in the month of July, the mercury went down to 36 deg., and that remains the memorable "cold day" in the history of the town. No doubt Little Rock has seen it below zero. Once, in Sydney, in mid-summer, about New ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "The temperature rarely touches freezing point, except on the highlands round Salisbury and Fort Charter, and owing to the great elevation (4000 to 5000 feet) of most of the country, rarely exceeds 90 deg. in the shade. In the low-lying Zambesi valley, however, it is very hot from December ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... temperature recorded during the winter of 1873-74 was 6 deg. Fah. (-14.44 deg. Cent.). As it is evident that during the winter season the temperature of the air must frequently remain for days, and perhaps weeks, far below the freezing point of water, the fact that the water of the Lake does not congeal has been regarded as an anomalous phenomenon. Some persons imagine that this may be due to the existence of subaqueous hot springs in the bed of the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... their own local atmosphere and temperature, there comes in a second Boston Fahrenheit. The two of the same name look at each other for a moment, and rush together so eagerly that their bulbs are endangered. How well they understand each other! Thirty-two degrees marks the freezing point. Two hundred and twelve marks the boiling point. They have the same scale, the same fixed points, the same record: no wonder they ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Erie Protection Committee would predispose him in favor of England's natural enemy. In view of the possible departure of the Ninth, and the consequent prolongation of the European war, gold rose several degrees above freezing point. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... intensity with the amount of iodine.) The cells divide much as in Cladophora, but the nucleus here takes part in the process. The division naturally occurs only at night, but by reducing the temperature at night to near the freezing point (4 deg. C., or a little lower), the process may be checked. The experiment is most conveniently made when the temperature out of doors approaches the freezing point. Then it is only necessary to keep the plants in a warm room until about 10 ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... latitudes exact observations show a striking difference between the 'mean annual temperature' of the east and west coasts of America. The mean annual temperature of Nain, in (lat. 57 degrees 10'), is fully 6.8 degrees 'below' the freezing point, while on the northwest coast, at New Archangel, in Russian America (lat. 57 degrees 3'), it is 12.4 degrees 'above' this point. At the first-named place, the mean summer temperature hardly amounts to 43 degrees, while at the latter place it is 57 degrees. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the Thames is thus terminated. —Part of the month of January 1881 was, as regards cold, especially severe. The mean temperature of the period January 12 to 26 (15 days) was only 24.2 deg., or 14.7 deg. below the average; the temperature fell below 20 deg. on 10 days, and rose above the freezing point only on 3 days. The highest temperature in this period was 35.3 deg., the lowest 12.7 deg.. On January 17th (while staying at Playford) my son Hubert and I noticed an almost imperceptible movement in the upper clouds from the South-East. On that night began the terrible easterly gale, ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... further than their labour, he drives and whips them about, and works them beyond their strength, and sometimes till they expire; he feels no loss in their death, he knows the plantation must be supplied, and his humanity is estimated by his interest, which rises always above freezing point. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... guess the one way that led to success. But he was skilled in the technic of his profession, and did not make the mistake now of subjecting Helen or Spencer to the risk of an ugly fall. The air temperature had dropped from eighty degrees Fahrenheit to below freezing point. Rocks that gave safe foothold an hour earlier were now glazed with an amalgam of sleet and snow. If, in his dull mind, he wondered why Spencer came next to Helen, rather than Bower or Stampa,—either of whom ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... for an equal period must be followed by a period of intense cold, such as we have no experience of, even in the Arctic regions. The highest authorities state that the cold during the Moon's long night must reach as low as 250 degrees below the freezing point of water. These considerations, I think, reasonably suggest that the existence of any form of life in the Moon is ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... my share," offered Julia. "I don't ever want to see a crab again as long as I live," and her face fell to positive freezing point. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... vegetable food for the afflicted men. Though the sun was beginning to appear again, February was the coldest part of the year, and no one could be long out in the open without being frostbitten. It was not till the middle of April that a slight thaw began, and the thermometer rose to freezing point. On 1st August the ships were able to sail out of Winter Harbour and to struggle westward again. But they could not get beyond Melville Island for the ice, and after the ships had been knocked about by it, Parry decided to return to Lancaster ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... Introduction—Lowering the Freezing Point of the Mixing Water; Common Salt (Sodium Chloride):—Freezing Temperature Chart—Heating Concrete Materials; Portable Heaters; Heating in Stationary Bins; Other Examples of Heating Methods, Power Plant, Billings, Mont., Wachusett Dam, Huronian Power Co. Dam, Arch Bridge, Piano, ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... shipped in ice to the substations where the delivery wagon is waiting. In the ideal delivery wagon there are shallow vats of ice in which the bottles are placed, thus permitting the milk to reach the baby's home having all the while been kept at a temperature just above the freezing point. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... come along until within a few minutes of the hour. It's precious cold here, though the wall does shelter us from the wind a bit; still it's not a lively job having to wait here half an hour, with the thermometer somewhere below freezing point." ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... darkness. French growers plant in a warm bed of the temperature suited to Mushrooms, but this treatment ruins the flavour, and has the effect of making the fibre of the leaves woolly. It is far simpler and better to put the roots into a cellar or shed in which a temperature above the freezing point may be relied on, and from which every ray of light can be excluded. They can be closely packed in deep boxes, with light soil or leaf-mould between. If the soil be fairly moist, watering will not be necessary ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons



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