glacier

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large body of ice which flows under its own mass, usually downhill.

   They warned that the effects of glacier melting on water resources are becoming “increasingly serious” for China.

2. 2
   noun

   An area of a mountain where snow is present year-round.

   You can ski down the glacier in both the winter and the summer.

3. 3
   noun

   Something that moves very slowly

   The queue in the pharmacy was a glacier.

4. 4
   noun

   a slowly moving mass of ice

Borrowed from French glacier, from Franco-Provençal gllaciér, from Vulgar Latin *glaciārium, a derivative of Latin glaciēs (“ice”), of uncertain origin. First attested in English in 1744 per the OED.

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