English

Adjective

Antarctican ‎(not comparable)

1. (nonstandard) Antarctic; of or pertaining to Antarctica.
   • 1859, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, Governor-General of India, page 119

     ...West Antarctican part of Gondwanaland are very informative.

   • a. 1951, The Modern Review, The Modern Review Office (Calcutta), page 383

     By studying the modern trends of international affairs it may be very easily understood that the Antarctican shores are gradually becoming important naval bases.

   • 1951 May, The Modern Review, The Modern Review Office (Calcutta), page 384

     This fascinating view of Mendez-Correa may not seem too incredible, as actually the Antarctican shores might have possessed warm regions...

   • 1957, Kenneth Royston Sealy, The Geography of Air Transport, Hutchinson University Library (publisher), page 93

     Nevertheless, the possibility of trans-Antarctican airways between South America and Australasia seems a much more remote possibility

     1959, Polar Record, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University Press, page 858

     At various times he was President of the American Polar Society, the Association of American Geographers and the Antarctican Society.

   • 1965, Richard S. Lewis, A Continent for Science, The Antarctic Adventure, Viking press, page 118

     Did it belong to South America or to Antarctica? Where was the junction or separation of the Andean and Antarctican mountain systems?

   • 1991, Kathryn Thompson, Close Your Eyes and Think of Dublin, Portrait of a Girl, FC2, ISBN 0932511414, page 173

     ...no way to hold on, trapped on an antarctican icefloat.

   • 2000, Monroe W. Strickberger, Evolution, Jones & Bartlett, ISBN 0763710660, page 454

     From South America, marsupials dispersed into an Antarctican continent that was considerably warmer than at present and, unaccompanied by placentals, reached Australia during the early Eocene, about 50 million years ago.

Synonyms

• Antarctic

References

• 1876, Appalachia, Appalachian Mountain Club, page 62

Noun

Antarctican ‎(plural Antarcticans)

1. (fictional or hypothetical) A native of Antarctica.
   • 1935, Edison Marshall, Dian of the Lost Land, H. C. Kinsey & Company, Inc., pages 53 and 62

     ...customs which the Antarcticans might have. How he wished he had made the trip alone, and need not share with Adam the scientific triumphs to come!

     Of course she was—the daughter of Morrison, Hull’s companion who had befriended and protected him against the Antarcticans.

   • 1956, Walter Sullivan, Quest for a Continent, McGraw-Hill, page 273,

     Had the US Navy icebreakers been unable to rescue them from the ice in early 1948 her child might have been the first native-born Antarctican.

   • 2001, Kieran Mulvaney, At the Ends of the Earth, History of the Polar Regions, Island Press, ISBN 1559639083, page 67

     Gonneville departed this enchanted land...taking with him...an “Indian” prince called Essomeric. The land was not, of course, the southern continent, and Essomeric was not an Antarctican. De Gonneville had probably been to southern Brazil.

   • 2004, R. Brooke Lea and Barry H. Cohen, Essentials of Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN 0471480762, page 45,

     Recall the exercise at the end of the previous chapter, and imagine that you discover just one Antarctican, and you measure his or her body temperature. If you know the population mean for Antarcticans (perhaps it is 98.6°F), then you have one piece of information about variability.

   • 2006, William L. Fox, Driving to Mars, Shoemaker & Hoard, ISBN 1-59376-111-2, page 227,

     Part of the reason is that there is an indigenous tradition of consuming seals in the north for subsistence, whereas sealing in the south was done almost exclusively for commercial reasons, there being no native Antarcticans.

2. (sometimes humorous) One who has spent time in Antarctica, especially a scientist or researcher.
   • 1956, Antarctic, New Zealand Antarctic Society

     ...the easy-going good nature and “she’s right, mate,” attitude of the genuine Australian is a simple but practical outlook which could well be copied by many future Antarcticans.

   • 1959, The National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Society, page 541

     We were not the only Antarcticans flying early this 1958-59 season. Soviet scientists across the icecap were planning an over-snow traverse toward the South Pole and wanted to survey the route by air.

   • 1965, Richard S. Lewis, A Continent for Science, The Antarctic Adventure, Viking Press, page 258,

     The Antarcticans sense that life must be asserted here. It cannot draw back before these wastes, but must subdue them if only to demonstrate its viability.

   • 1987, Michael Parfit, South Light: A Journey to the Last Continent, Collier Books, ISBN 0020236204, page 273,

     I’m an Antarctican; I can sleep on the ground.

   • 2005, Jeff Rubin et al, Antarctica, Lonely Planet, ISBN 1-74059-094-5, page 81,

     You should also have little trouble finding some glacier ice for your whiskey; many Antarcticans enjoy sipping their Scotch on very old rocks!

Usage notes

• The sense of a native is strictly hypothetical or fictional. Antarctica does not have any native peoples or permanent residents, though a few persons have been born on the continent.
• In the sense of a visitor, this term is sometimes placed in quotation marks or treated as a tongue-in-cheek term.

References

• 1926, The Quarterly Review of Biology, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Society of Naturalists, Williams & Wilkens