nunatak
English
WOTD – 8 February 2013
Starr Nunatak, on the coast of Victoria Land, Antarctica.
Cântaro Magro, Serra da Estrela, Portugal, formed as nunatak during the last ice age and now exposed.
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from Greenlandic nunataq.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈnʌnətæk/, /ˈnuːnətæk/
- Hyphenation: nun‧a‧tak
Noun
nunatak (plural nunataks or nunataker)
- A mountain top or rocky element of a ridge that is surrounded by glacial ice but is not covered by ice; a peak protruding from the surface ice sheet. [from 1870s]
- 1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913, Volume 2, Constable and Company Ltd. (1922), page 365:
- We made for a slope close to the end of the island or nunatak, where Shackleton must have got up also; it is obviously the only place when you look at it from a commanding rise.
- 2008, Andrea M. J. Coronato, Fernando Coronato, Elizabeth Mazzoni, & Miriam Vásquez, "The Physical Geography of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego", in The Late Cenozoic of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego (ed. J. Rabassa), Elsevier (2008), →ISBN, page 45:
- Only a few lichens and mosses colonize the rocky walls of cirques and nunataks.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 155:
- The peak in whose lee you have chosen to set up your command post is far too regular in shape to be the nunatak you imagine it.
- 1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913, Volume 2, Constable and Company Ltd. (1922), page 365:
Translations
See also
Danish
Etymology
Declension
Declension of nunatak
| common gender |
Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
| nominative | nunatak | nunatakken | nunatakker | nunatakkerne |
| genitive | nunataks | nunatakkens | nunatakkers | nunatakkernes |
Slovak
Etymology
From Greenlandic nunataq.
Noun
nunatak m (genitive singular nunataka, nominative plural nunataky, genitive plural nunatakov, declension pattern of dub)
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