Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
ice cream headache en · NOUN
Meanings
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A type of headache caused by cold around the brain, either at the back of the throat when eating ice cream (as the name suggests), or from cold around the outside of the head.
What most of us learn as children to call a brain freeze or ice cream headache is referred to by scientists as a cold-stimulus headache, Starling says. […] Irene Toldo, a professor of child neurology and psychiatry at the University of Padua in Italy, and her colleagues examined four decades of scientific study on ice cream headaches to find out. (She's partial to liquorice gelato.)
2026 May 30, Elizabeth Anne Brown, “Brain freeze? Ice cream headaches can reveal a surprising amount about your health”, in BBC, archived from the original on 06 Jun 2026:In my wilder days as a winter surfer we all knew about the sickening frontal headache that resulted within seconds of driving through a breaking wave. The pain continued for 20 to 30 seconds, only to be reinforced by the next breaking wave. Even then (35 years ago) we always referred to the pain as the ice cream headache.
Harris, Mark (6 September 1997), “Cerebral vasoconstriction causing decrease in arterial flow may have role”, in Ice cream headache, volume 315, number 609
Forms
Synonyms
brain freeze