thaw

UK/θɔː/

verbB1+5 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,754 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: thawing, thawed, thaws

To thaw is to go from frozen back to soft. Chicken out of the freezer onto a plate in the fridge overnight; the pond in the park turning back into water some morning in March.

It works both ways round: the meat thaws, and you thaw the meat. In the kitchen, defrost is the word for a machine doing it and thaw for it happening on its own time. There is a noun as well — a thaw is the first warm spell after a hard winter, and a thaw set in is how it is put. The figurative use is common and worth knowing: relations thaw between two countries, or between two neighbours who stopped speaking in 2019. Keep it apart from melt. Butter melts and never thaws; thawing needs something that was frozen and is coming back to itself.

Definitions of thaw

1verbthawTo become soft and unfrozen, or to let frozen food do so.B1+
“Take the fish out tonight so it can thaw by lunchtime.”
- Said"Take the chicken out to thaw; I'll cook it tomorrow."
- WrittenThe bread thawed on the counter through the afternoon and was soft by supper.
- UsedThaw frozen meat in the fridge overnight, never on the side.
- ContrastThaw, not melt. Melting turns a solid to liquid; thawing only turns frozen back to soft. melt →
- Not thisWarming soup is not thawing it, unless it started frozen.
- SimplyThe fish thaws in the kitchen. It is soft now.
Patternthaw sth out · leave sth to thaw · thawed + noun · thaw overnight
synonyms: defrost
2verbturnsOf ice or snow, to melt as the weather turns warmer.B1
“The path is dangerous while the ice thaws and freezes again each night.”
3nounperiodA period of warmer weather in which snow and ice melt.B1
“The river burst its banks during the spring thaw.”
4verbfriendlierTo become friendlier after a stretch of coldness.B2
“Relations between the two families thawed slowly over the summer.”
5nounimprovementAn improvement in a cold or hostile relationship.B2
“The visit was the first sign of a thaw.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

thaw is a change of state.

Also accepted in games: defrost

Remember it

tHAW → soft and RAW again

Take the meat out of the freezer in the morning: by dinner it has thawed, soft and raw again, ready to cook.

hooks ontoraw

Where it comes from

Thaw is one of the old English words. Old English þāwian goes back through Proto-Germanic *þawjaną, to thaw, to a Proto-Indo-European root *teh₂- that meant to melt, to flow, to stream. Middle English had thawen for the verb and thawe for the warm spell, so the noun is simply the verb standing still.

Proto-Indo-European
*teh₂- — to melt; to flow, stream
Proto-Germanic
*þawjaną — to thaw
Proto-West Germanic
*þauwjan — to melt, thaw; to digest; to dissolve
Old English
þāwian
Middle English
thawen
English, today
thaw

Built from

thowen · Middle English — to melt (ice, snow, etc.), thaw
*þāwan · Old English — to thaw
thowe · Middle English — melting of ice, snow, etc., thawing

The is derived from Middle English thawen, thowen (“to melt (ice, snow, etc.), thaw”), from Old English þāwian, þāwan (“to thaw”), from Proto-West Germanic þauwjan (“to melt, thaw; to digest; to dissolve”), from Proto-Germanic þawjaną (“to thaw”), from Proto-Indo-European teh₂- (“to melt; to flow, stream”). The is derived from Late Middle English thawe, thowe (“melting of ice, snow, etc., thawing”), from thawen, thowen (see above). 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, A Man Called Ove, Weather & Seasons

First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

thaw in the wild

The thaw became possible after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Khrushchev thaw
The thaw was highlighted by Khrushchev's 1954 visit to Beijing, China, his 1955 visit to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and his subsequent meeting with US president Dwight D.
Khrushchev thaw
The underlying mechanism involves injury from ice crystals and blood clots in small blood vessels following thawing.
Frostbite
Shultz pushed for Reagan to establish relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to a thaw between the United States and the Soviet Union.
George Shultz

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of thaw

1verbthawTo become soft and unfrozen, or to let frozen food do so.B1+

“Take the fish out tonight so it can thaw by lunchtime.”

Said"Take the chicken out to thaw; I'll cook it tomorrow."
WrittenThe bread thawed on the counter through the afternoon and was soft by supper.
UsedThaw frozen meat in the fridge overnight, never on the side.
ContrastThaw, not melt. Melting turns a solid to liquid; thawing only turns frozen back to soft. melt →
Not thisWarming soup is not thawing it, unless it started frozen.
SimplyThe fish thaws in the kitchen. It is soft now.

Patternthaw sth out · leave sth to thaw · thawed + noun · thaw overnight

synonyms: defrost

2verbturnsOf ice or snow, to melt as the weather turns warmer.B1

“The path is dangerous while the ice thaws and freezes again each night.”

3nounperiodA period of warmer weather in which snow and ice melt.B1

“The river burst its banks during the spring thaw.”

4verbfriendlierTo become friendlier after a stretch of coldness.B2

“Relations between the two families thawed slowly over the summer.”

5nounimprovementAn improvement in a cold or hostile relationship.B2

“The visit was the first sign of a thaw.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

thaw is a change of state.

Also accepted in games: defrost