Glacierize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To cover an area with glaciers or transform it into glaciated terrain through accumulation of ice and snow
2. To subject a landscape to glaciation, causing it to become covered by sheets of ice and undergo glacial processes
3. To convert or cover a region with glacial ice, resulting in the characteristic features and conditions of a glaciated environment

Etymology: Here the word is built from "glacier" plus the suffix "-ize," which turns a noun into a verb meaning to make, treat, or cover with the thing named. "Glacier" came into English from French, where it was borrowed from the Franco-Provençal dialect of the Alps, in which it meant an ice mass. That dialect word traces back to the Latin "glacies," meaning ice. The suffix has its own path. It descends from Greek "-izein," passed into Latin as "-izare," and reached English through French and Late Latin. English has long attached it to nouns, so the verb is a regular formation rather than a historic coinage. It is uncommon, mainly appearing in geology and earth-science writing about landscapes shaped or transformed by ice.