glacier

American  

[glay-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

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Etymology

Origin of glacier

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

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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

Tibet and Nepal were also recently devastated by massive floods and landslides less than two months ago, unleashed by a glacier collapse, which killed at least 1,400 people.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026

The same processes that create this hazard – glacier retreat, steep terrain, dynamic geology – are also what make these landscapes so compelling.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2026

The Budhi Gandaki is a tributary of the Trishuli river, downstream from another tributary where a glacier collapse caused the previous disaster.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

The device comes in black, silver, burgundy and glacier, and the smaller model provides up to 24 hours of charge, while the larger phone offers up to 30 hours.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026

The glacier had shifted, just a little, but the movement had split the thick ice below.

From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown

This has sped up the melting of glaciers, icefields, snowpacks, and ground that's normally frozen all year.

From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2026

The losses were even more dramatic for some smaller glaciers, which disappeared entirely.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026

The winter of 2025 to 2026 ranked among Switzerland's ten least snowy winters since records began, leaving glaciers with less snow to protect them from warmer temperatures.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026

Between July and September, the country's glaciers released approximately 2.2 trillion liters of water, an amount exceeding four times the drinking water consumed by Swiss households in an entire year.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026

On July 5, however, the Teklanika was at full flood, swollen with rain and snowmelt from glaciers high in the Alaska Range, running cold and fast.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

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Related Words

• ice floe
• iceberg

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