Old English īs, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch ijs and German Eis.

• The primary purpose of breaking the ice was to allow the passage of boats through frozen water, but by the end of the 16th century people were using the phrase to mean ‘to begin an undertaking’. The modern sense, ‘to do or say something to relieve tension or get conversation going’, began in the 17th century. Ice has represented a person's cold nature or unfriendly manner since at least the time of Shakespeare. In the early 19th century the poet Lord Byron wrote in his Don Juan: ‘And your cold people are beyond all price, When once you've broken their confounded ice.’ Ice cream has been around longer than you might think. The term first appeared in the mid 18th century, but the earlier equivalent iced cream is known from the late 17th. In 1848 the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray could use the shortened form ice in Vanity Fair: ‘He went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's shop.’ Since the early 18th century both icing and ice have been names for sugar paste for cakes. The American equivalent is frosting [1756]. The idea behind both is that the white sugar looks like ice. The phrase the icing on the cake, ‘an attractive but inessential addition or enhancement’, has been recorded since the 1920s

Early 21st century: acronym from in case of emergency.