ice-freeadj.

1847 Patent Jrnl. 20 Mar. 710/1 In winter, a great many vessels resort to the ice-free port of Flussingen.

1891 Pall Mall Gaz. 13 Nov. 6/1 Russia, says Björnson, must sooner or later have an ice-free harbour on the Atlantic coast.

1932 Punch 23 Nov. 577/1 Lord Hailsham refused to extend the Canadian grain preference to Canadian grain preference to Canadian grain railed for storage to ice-free American ports and consigned to Great Britain from there.

1969 W. Mitford Lovely she Goes! vi. 33 The Arctic city of Murmansk remains Russia's only ice-free port.

1998 J. M. Collins Mil. Geogr. i. vi. 98 No nation has greater need for icebreakers than Russia, where only the Black Sea Fleet enjoys ice-free ports.

1858 Jrnl. Royal Geogr. Soc. 28 284 A sudden beginning of a perfectly ice-free sea is scarcely to be imagined.

1898 Daily News 29 Sept. 1/2 After forty-eight hours' sailing we were once more in ice-free water.

1935 P. S. Welch Limnol. vii. 169 Surface waters, at least during the ice-free seasons, maintain constantly a high dissolved oxygen content.

1978 J. A. Maxwell America's Fascinating Indian Heritage i. 14/2 (caption) Movement of glaciers..created ice-free corridors.

2007 Independent 30 May 2/5 The rest of the Arctic will be ice-free in summer. Polar bears, walrus, ringed seals and other species of seals are projected to virtually disappear.