Brinicles are self-assembling tubular ice membrane structures, centimeters to meters in length, formed by the downward migration of supercooled brine rejected from ice sheets, and found beneath sea ice in the polar regions of Earth.  They provide a plausible setting for geochemical gradients amenable to life at the ice-ocean interface, in some ways analogous to hydrothermal vents at the seafloor-ocean interface. Their occurrence in icy ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus remains hypothetical. The context of brinicles on Earth includes influences from oceanic flow, which will differ in other worlds, and surficial inputs from the atmosphere that do not exist in oceans with kilometers-thick global coverings of ice formed from the underlying ocean. Thus, it is difficult to project the likely occurrence and role of brinicles based on field observations of their earthly analogues. We discuss brinicles as they are currently understood, including their electrochemical properties in connection with potential habitats at the ice-ocean interface on Europa and Enceladus. We employ a fluid mechanical model (Cardoso and Cartwright, 2017) to assess the properties of brinicles on other worlds and consider their longevity relative to potential brine outflows from the overlying ice. We demonstrate how brinicles may grow by thermal diffusion, and provide simple scaling for their growth and outflow rates. The specifics of the composition and dynamics of both the ice and the ocean in these worlds remain poorly constrained. We demonstrate through calculations using FREZCHEM that sulfate likely fractionates out of accreting ice in Europa and Enceladus, and thus that an exogenous origin of sulfate observed on Europa’s surface need not preclude additional endogenous sulfate in Europa’s ocean. We suggest that, like hydrothermal vents on Earth, brinicles in icy ocean worlds constitute ideal places where ecosystems of organisms might be found.