Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A nearly vertical shaft or cavity worn in a glacier by surface or rock debris falling through a crack in the ice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A nearly vertical shaft or cavity worn in a glacier by the running down of water, which sometimes in the hot days of summer, on the large glaciers, forms considerable rivulets on the surface of the ice. These run until they reach a crevice, down which they descend and gradually wear a more or less cylindrical cavity, through which the water pours in a subglacial cascade.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- From French moulin, from Late Latin molinum ("mill"). (Wiktionary)
- French, mill, moulin, from Old French molin, mill, from Late Latin molīnum; see mill1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The shop, which takes its name from the fact that it is housed in a 113-year-old former mill (moulin is French for mill) is easy to spot.”
“COOPER: Well, we climbed into that depression, called a moulin, to get a look at how water is carving deep holes into the ice and how that's affecting the entire ice sheet.”
“Somewhat below the junction Tyndall and Hirst sounded a moulin, that is, a cavity through which the surface glacier waters escape, to a depth of 160 feet; the guides alleged that they had sounded a similar aperture to a depth of 350 feet, and had found no bottom.”
“Incredibly, this vertical shaft - called a moulin (French for mill) - manages to swallow this entire river into oblivion, the water plunging a third of a mile towards the base of the icecap.”
“Lisanne Aerts A moulin forms when water finds a crack in a glacier.”
“The gear will, in theory, allow me to navigate across glacial ice and climb the moulin walls.”
“Of all the things that can go wrong on a glacier, falling into a moulin is among the worst.”
“If we don't climb into a moulin soon, we will run out of time.”
“Stumble into a moulin, and even a person who survives the fall could become a human cork, wedged into a constriction.”
“To the right, I see a dark spot—another moulin, this one dry.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘moulin’.
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
malm, marc, marl, maya, mazy, meet, mel, mew, mewling, mho, miasma, micaceous and 898 more...
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Ice Words
Freeboard
FirnGeoscience Laser ..., Ice, Cloud and la..., Cryosphere, Permafrost, Hydrosphere, Isotasy, Terminus, ablation, moulin, The "Zwally Effect", zamboni
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the earth
Planetary chaos: terrain, landscape and geology excluding rocks. (See "the geologist" list for the latter.)
butte, karst, caldera, mesa, laccolith, cwm, crater, alp, precipice, sierra, badlands, prairie and 122 more...
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Lay of the Land
all kinds of scapes
steppe, veld, veldt, campo, llano, taiga, krummholz, elfinwood, tundra, sward, lea, heath and 197 more...
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Glacial Effects
albedo, ablation, crevasse, firn, glacial flour, glacial polish, icefall, jokulhlaup, ice sheet, ice shelf, ice cap, ice stream and 82 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for moulin.
reesetee A narrow, chute or crevasse through which water enters a glacier from the surface. The lower end of a moulin may sometimes be exposed in the face of a glacier or at the edge of a stagnant block of ice. Also called glacier mill. Nov 17, 2008