Glacial

adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·2 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A glacial period (colloquially known as an ice age).
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, or relating to glaciers.

    "We examined the glacial deposits."

  2. 2
    Very slow. figuratively

    "He could remember a day that he had spent the whole of (he couldn't have been more than ten) running one of the great, creaking freight elevators at a glacial speed, answering the calls of the bell—one ring, five rings, three rings—with an almost unbearable sense of responsibility."

  3. 3
    Cold and icy.

    "After the rain and frost, the pavements were glacial."

  4. 4
    Having the appearance of ice.

    "On cold days, glacial acetic acid will freeze in the bottle."

  5. 5
    Cool and unfriendly. figuratively

    "He gave me a glacial stare."

Adjective
  1. 1
    extremely cold wordnet
  2. 2
    devoid of warmth and cordiality; expressive of unfriendliness or disdain wordnet
  3. 3
    relating to or derived from a glacier wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Of the Pleistocene period dominated by the presence of glaciers.

Synonyms

All synonyms
coldfreezingfrigidalgidaloofarctic

Example

More examples

"Glacial meltwater is not purer than other types of water."

Etymology

From French glacial, from Latin glaciālis, from glaciēs (“ice”). The sense "slow" refers to the speed of actual glaciers, typically around 1 meter per day.

Related phrases

glacial acetic acidglacial acidglacial buzz sawglacial driftglacial erraticglacial flourglacial humourglacial lakeglacial lake outburst floodglacial maximumglacial milkglacial period

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.