alpine glacier
- noun
- /ˈælpaɪn ˈɡleɪʃər/
- Specialized
:
glaciar alpino
- Visitors come from all over the world to hike near the alpine glacier and enjoy the breathtaking views.
Examples
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As the climate warmed, the alpine glacier began retreating further up the mountain, revealing new rock formations.
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The alpine glacier slowly carved its way down the valley, shaping the landscape as it melted.
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The alpine glaciers flow from the Asgard Range on the north side of the valley and from the Kukri Hills on the south side (Figure 1).
Academic text (1999) -
The drainage of meltwater from the alpine glaciers into meltwater streams supports the brief annual productivity of the stream ecosystems.
Academic text (1999)
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'alpine' = of high mountain regions and 'glacier' = a slowly moving mass of ice, so an 'alpine glacier' is simply a glacier located in high mountains (moving down a valley). This literal, transparent combination follows regular adjectival modification patterns and is cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE.
Etymology
Alpine glacier comes from the image of a slow 'river of ice' high in the mountains. The word alpine points to the high mountain area and glacier to the moving ice, so the term now means 'a glacier that forms in a high mountain valley and moves slowly down the valley'.