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See also: arctic

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Arctic

Wikipedia

(astronomy Category:en:Astronomy#ARCTIC, now only in compounds) Pertaining to the celestial north pole, or to the pole star. [from 14th c.]
(geography Category:en:Geography#ARCTIC) Pertaining to the northern polar region of the planet, characterised by extreme cold and an icy landscape. [from 16th c.]
- 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):
  What neede the artick people loue star-light,
  To whom the sunne shines both by day and night.
  Category:English terms with quotations#ARCTIC
- 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 706-711:
  […] on th’ other side
  Incenc’t with indignation Satan stood
  Unterrifi’d, and like a Comet burn’d,
  That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
  In th’ Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair
  Shakes Pestilence and Warr.
  Category:English terms with quotations#ARCTIC
- 1788, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Humanity, or the Rights of Nature‎, London: T. Cadell, Book 2, p. 96:
  See FREEDOM smiling thro’ the realms of frost,
  And glow on Labradore’s inclement coast,
  Tho’ darkness sheds deep night thro’ half the year,
  And snow invests the clime,—that clime is dear,
  For there fair LIBERTY resides, and there
  At large the native breasts the searching air,
  Where blows the arctic tempests icy gale,
  And famine seizes on the spermy whale,
  Category:English terms with quotations#ARCTIC
  Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
- 1968, Robert Conquest, “A Nation in Torment”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties‎, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 327:
  A medical examination determined who was to be sent on to Norilsk in the Arctic.
  Category:English terms with quotations#ARCTIC
Extremely cold, snowy, or having other properties of extreme winter associated with the Arctic. [from 16th c.]
- 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 45:
  ‘Could you close that window, please!’ Strickland called, dialling again. ‘It's bloody arctic down this end.’
  Category:English terms with quotations#ARCTIC
  Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
Designed for use in very cold conditions. [from 19th c.]

Usage notes

Similarly to Antarctic, the English word was originally pronounced without /k/, but the spelling pronunciation has become the more common one. The "c" was originally added to the spelling for etymological reasons, and its pronunciation followed thereafter.