Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) an unemotional person, esp. a sexually unresponsive woman.

1909		J. London ‘South of the Slot’ Complete Short Stories (1993) II 1583: When a freshman he had been baptized ‘Ice-Box’ by his warmer-blooded fellows.
1936		J.T. Farrell World I Never Made 78: That wife of his, she was an icebox.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 103: This broad is real stuck-up [...] A real icebox, you dig?
1979		P. Hamill Deadly Piece 11: Who was the other one? [...] The ice-box with the eyes?

2. (Aus./Can./US prison) a solitary confinement cell [note SE isolation and ice n.² ].

1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 37: Ice House, a solitary cell.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: When finally put away in the old doss, or, if it be solitary confinement, the ice house [etc].
1927		Chicago Trib. 13 Nov. N4/1: How can they put a man in the ice box for shooting off his kisser.
1934		L. Berg Prison Nurse (1964) 123: To the inmates they [correction cells] were known variously as the ‘bing,’ [...] ‘ice box’ and ‘cooler’.
1936		‘Josephine Tey’ Shilling for Candles 22: ‘Well, just to pay her out [...] I’m going to split on her. She’ll probably put me in the ice-box for twenty-four hours, but it’ll be worth it’.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 78: We got him in the icebox now, drunk driving, drunk in auto, assaulting police officer in performance of duty.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 106/1: Ice-box, the. [...] . (P) The isolation or segregation block.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 265: All that winter I was kept in that ice box.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 11: Whenever an inmate is found guilty of violating prison rules, a customary punishment is isolation. Each prison has cellhouses or areas designated for this punishment. These areas are referred to as lockup units or lockup. (Archaic: icebox, ironhouse, cooler, dark cell).

3. (US prison) the morgue.

1929		C.G. Givens ‘Chatter of Guns’ in Sat. Eve. Post 13 Apr.; list extracted in AS VI:2 (1930) 133: ice box, n. Morgue.
1932		L.E. Lawes Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing 14: This section, referred to as the ‘dance hall’ by the condemned, is connected by a corridor ‘in-back’ (the pet name for the execution chamber), and the ‘ice-box’ or morgue.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 106/1: Ice-box, the. 1. The morgue.
1988		W.D. Myers Scorpions 207: ‘Indian in the slam. Angel he down there in the city icebox’.

4. (US prison) a life sentence.

1934		J.L. Kuethe ‘Prison Parlance’ in AS IX:1 27: icebox. A life sentence.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

5. (US) the vagina.

1931		Wesley Wilson & Harry McDaniels ‘She Shakes a Mean Ashcan’ 🎵 She’s hot as mustard, sly as a fox, / And she likes plenty meat in her icebox.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 48: In yer mother-in-law’s icebox it’s a schooner! [...] Yer mother-in-law’s snatch!

6. (US) a prison; a jail.

1928		Oakland Tribune (CA) 20 Dec. 5/3: It was side-by-side until this morning, when they line up before the gavel and get the hot-spot.
1938		J. Archibald ‘Bird Cagey’ in Popular Detective Jan. 🌐 You’re under arrest [...] You’re goin’ to the icebox.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 192: They got him in the icebox.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 79: I’ll teach you some tricks. We got nothin’ else to do in this ice-box.

7. (US Und.) a safe.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

8. a coffin.

1970

S. Naipaul Fireflies 206: At six o’clock, what was called the ‘ice-box’, a crude affair, deep-sided and stained a dark, dull brown, arrived from the funeral home.