Other forms: floes
A floe is a large sheet of ice floating on the sea. Drift on a floe.
It is frozen seawater rather than a piece of glacier, which is what an iceberg is. A floe of any size will not raise the sea when it melts, since it is already floating.
1nounfloeA large sheet of ice floating on the sea.
“A polar bear stood on the floe, watching the water for seals.”
floe is ice.
Probably from Norwegian flo, a layer or slab, from Old Norse flo.
Old Norse
fló — layer
Norwegian Nynorsk
flo — layer, slab
English, today
floe
Early 19th century. Probably from Norwegian Nynorsk flo (“layer, slab”), from Old Norse fló (“layer”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA