Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a sharp ridge of ice between crevasses of a glacier

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • Cares in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • "The disaster took place after a huge serac broke and fell, sweeping away several climbers and stranding as many as a dozen mountaineers above a steep gully without ropes at a height of about 27,000 feet, not far from the summit."

    The New York Times, Rescuers Wait to Reach K2 Survivor, by Salman Masood and Tom Rachman, August 6, 2008

    The American Meteorological Society's glossary defines a serac as "A large block of ice, generally taller than broad, formed by the fracturing of ice. Most commonly found within an icefall, at the edge of an ice cliff, or at the margins of fast-moving ice."

    August 5, 2008

  • Also sérac.

    November 18, 2008

  • Scurvy gnaws, steading smell, hearth's crackle.

    Crabs, shingle, seracs on the icefall.

    —Basil Bunting, Briggflatts

    March 8, 2009

  • "On the way a serac falls and the waist of a glacier—a series of accumulation crevasses—crumbles."

    The Future of Ice by Gretel Ehrlich, p 33 of the Vintage paperback edition

    August 2, 2019