glacier

American  

[gley-sher] / ˈgleɪ ʃər /

noun

• glaciers
  plural

1. 

   an extended mass of ice formed from snow falling and accumulating over the years and moving very slowly, either descending from high mountains, as in valley glaciers, or moving outward from centers of accumulation, as in continental glaciers.

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glacier British  

/ ˈɡlæsɪə, ˈɡleɪs- /

noun

1. a slowly moving mass of ice originating from an accumulation of snow. It can either spread out from a central mass ( continental glacier ) or descend from a high valley ( alpine glacier )

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glacier Scientific  

/ glā′shər /

1. A large mass of ice moving very slowly through a valley or spreading outward from a center. Glaciers form over many years from packed snow in areas where snow accumulates faster than it melts. A glacier is always moving, but when its forward edge melts faster than the ice behind it advances, the glacier as a whole shrinks backward.

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glacier Cultural  

1. A large mass of ice formed over many years that does not melt during the summer. Glaciers move slowly over an area of land such as a mountain valley.

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Discover More

A significant percentage of the water of the Earth is locked up in glaciers.

Glaciers exist in high mountains throughout the temperate zones and cover most of Antarctica. Glaciers recede during warm periods and can expand during cold periods, creating ice ages.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• glaciered
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• glaciers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of glacier

1735–45; < dialectal French, derivative of Old French glace ice < Late Latin glacia (for Latin glaciēs )

Explanation

A glacier is a very large ice mass, sometimes miles and miles long. Glaciers might not seem all that exciting at first, but people are paying close attention to them because their melting is an indication of climate change. Most glaciers on Earth are found around the North and South poles, but every continent except for Australia has glaciers somewhere in its high mountain ranges. People often want to go see glaciers because they're beautiful, and some you can actually hike across. Luckily, if you get thirsty glaciers are the planet’s largest reservoir of freshwater. You’ll just have to find some way of melting them . . .

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

glacier glaciers

Sputnik Planitia is a vast glacier made largely of frozen nitrogen and is bigger than Texas and Oklahoma combined.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026

Immerzeel said it was "potentially weakened by the 2015 earthquake" and "destabilised further" by glacier and permafrost retreat.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

And "a glacier disaster in one country can lead to devastation in another as we saw with the recent tragedy of China and Nepal".

From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026

Last year, a partial glacier collapse wiped out the Swiss Alps village of Blatten.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026

Two figures stand on a jagged glacier floating in the deep, cold waters.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

Even so, parts of northern Sputnik Planitia have been darkened in patterns that resemble features seen on terrestrial glaciers after they are exposed to rainwater or to liquid emerging from beneath the ice.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026

As glaciers retreat, they can leave behind expanding lakes held back by unstable deposits of rock and ice.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

While the exact cause of the glacial collapse is unclear, climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risk of such disasters.

From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026

The future of that strategy has come into question as a warming planet destabilizes Himalayan glaciers and river systems, increasingly putting human lives and billions of dollars at risk.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026

There are no Alpine peaks or grinding glaciers, no great deposits of oil or precious metals, not a hint of a pyroclastic flow.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Related Words

• ice floe
• iceberg