Adjacent Words

Glacier definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

GLA'CIER, n. A field or immense mass of ice, formed in deep but elevated valleys, or on the sides of the Alps or other mountains. These masses of ice extend many miles in length and breadth, and remain undissolved by the heat of summer.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a slowly moving mass of ice

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: French, from Middle French dialect (Franco-Provençal), from glace ice, from Latin glacies; akin to Latin gelu frost — more at cold Date: 1744 a large body of ice moving slowly down a slope or valley or spreading outward on a land surface

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a mass of land ice formed by the accumulation of snow on high ground. Etymology: F f. glace ice ult. f. L glacies

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Glacier Gla"cier, n. [F. glacier, fr. glace ice, L. glacies.] An immense field or stream of ice, formed in the region of perpetual snow, and moving slowly down a mountain slope or valley, as in the Alps, or over an extended area, as in Greenland. Note: The mass of compacted snow forming the upper part of a glacier is called the firn, or n['e]v['e]; the glacier proper consist of solid ice, deeply crevassed where broken up by irregularities in the slope or direction of its path. A glacier usually carries with it accumulations of stones and dirt called moraines, which are designated, according to their position, as lateral, medial, or terminal (see Moraine). The common rate of flow of the Alpine glaciers is from ten to twenty inches per day in summer, and about half that in winter. Glacier theory (Geol.), the theory that large parts of the frigid and temperate zones were covered with ice during the glacial, or ice, period, and that, by the agency of this ice, the loose materials on the earth's surface, called drift or diluvium, were transported and accumulated.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(glaciers) A glacier is an extremely large mass of ice which moves very slowly, often down a mountain valley. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Ice-torrent, ice-stream.

Moby Thesaurus

Dry Ice, berg, calf, cryosphere, firn, floe, frazil, frozen water, glaciation, glacieret, glaze, glazed frost, granular snow, ground ice, growler, ice, ice banner, ice barrier, ice belt, ice cave, ice cubes, ice dike, ice field, ice floe, ice foot, ice front, ice island, ice needle, ice pack, ice pinnacle, ice raft, ice sheet, iceberg, icefall, icequake, icicle, jokul, lolly, neve, nieve penitente, pack ice, serac, shelf ice, sleet, slob, sludge, snow ice, snowberg