The word "glacial" is formal, common, and easy to understand, with a scientific tone.

Although you might talk literally about glacial lakes, glacial waters, glacial sediment and so on, here, we'll focus on the figurative meaning.

You might talk about glacial (very cold) eyes, stares, expressions, comments, silences, or rejections. "The raven in the poem utters nothing but a glacial 'Nevermore.'" Or you might be more literal: "I bit into a glacial tomato once and never again ordered a salad from Wendy's."

Or, you might complain about the glacial (very slow, extremely gradual) pace or speed at which some process moves. "It was 1997 and our internet connection was glacial." "If you don't mind the glacial speed of service, that Steak 'n Shake milkshake is truly worth it." "The narrator in this Mark Twain story tells everything at a glacial pace, which is both tedious and hilarious."

I only found one example that uses "glacial" to mean both "cold" and "slow." Check it out: "Progress in punishing police misconduct felt like the biting winter air: glacial (New York Times)."

"As if she senses my weakness, Helene grits her teeth and drives me back, her pale eyes glacial, daring me to challenge her."
  — Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes, 2015

"In the wake of a breakup, a woman squats in her ex-lover's lake house and becomes enamored of a mysterious teenager. This trite premise is stretched glacially over 90 minutes in 'Clementine.'"
   — Devika Girish, New York Times, 7 May 2020

has this page helped you understand "glacial"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain both meanings of "glacial" without saying "cold" or "gradual."

try it out:

The word "glacial" is perfect for griping impatiently about things that happen too slowly.

Give it a try! What's the most recent thing that annoyed you with its glacial pace or glacial progress?

It might have been a journey, a delivery, a conversation, the plot of a movie or a show, or a promotion or other major change in life.

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month: Poetic Connections!

Check out three snippets from a poem, along with three words we've studied—some beautiful, some outrageous—and decide which word you'll connect to each snippet. To see the definitions, highlight the hidden white text after each word. And to see an example, head here.

Try this set today:

"So This Is Nebraska" by Ted Kooser

Snippets:
1. "the loosening barns, their little windows dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs"
2. "Driving along with your hand out squeezing the air, a meadowlark waiting on every post"
3. "a pickup kicks its fenders off and settles back to read the clouds"

Words:
A. anthropomorphic (meaning... giving human traits to things that aren't human)
B. decrepit (meaning... old and worn out, as if creaking with age)
C. halcyon (meaning... calm and tranquil)

To see one possible set of answers, scroll all the way down; if your answers don’t match these, that's fine: all that matters is that yours make sense to you.

review this word:

1. Opposites of GLACIAL include

A. WARM and QUICK.
B. SMOOTH and TACTFUL.
C. FLAVORFUL and TASTEFUL.

2. In The Gene, Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote that two men "worked cordially at first... but the relationship soon _____ into frank, glacial hostility."

A. froze
B. melted
C. evaporated

Answers to the review questions: 1. A 2. A From the game: I’d connect anthropomorphic to snippet 3 because the pickup truck behaves like a human, though snippet 1 is a good option also, with the windows behaving like aging human eyes; decrepit to snippet 1 because the barns are aging and coming apart; and halcyon to snippet 2 for the country air and meadowlarks.

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.