glacier

Etymology

Borrowed from French glacier, from Franco-Provençal glacier, derived from glace + -ier, (cf. also Medieval Latin glaciarium), derived from Vulgar Latin *glacia, from Latin glacies (“ice”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold, to freeze”).

noun

1. (geology) 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. (mountaineering) An area of a mountain where snow is present year-round.
   You can ski down the glacier in both the winter and the summer.