glacial.

1. Relating to glaciers or the effects of their movement.

2. Extremely cold in temperature or interpersonal manner.

3. Proceeding so slowly that change is difficult to notice.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• glacial valley
• glacial erosion

On the page

Glacial erosion had widened the valley into a broad trough.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting / environment. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: setting, description. Commonness: moderately common.