glaciation
noun
Simple meaning
The process of covering with a glacier, or the state of being glaciated.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
glaysheeayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɡleɪʃiˈeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The process of covering with a glacier, or the state of being glaciated; the production of glacial phenomena; an ice age
A particular instance of glacier formation.
The act of freezing.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The process of covering with a glacier, or the state of being glaciated; the production of glacial phenomena; an ice age
Used this way, glaciation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use glaciation
- “Agassiz recognized marks of glaciation all over northern Europe.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A slowly moving mass of ice.
Related to The process of covering with a glacier, or the state of being glaciated.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The next-to-last Pleistocene glaciation in the Alps and the deposits laid down at that time.
The next-to-last Pleistocene glaciation in northern Europe and the deposits laid down at that time.
The next-to-last Pleistocene glaciation in Britain and the deposits laid down at that time.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.