any period of time during which a large part of the earth's surface was covered withice, due to the advance of glaciers, as in the late Carboniferous period, and during most of the Pleistocene; glaciation
2. (often capitals)
the Pleistocene epoch
Brit equivalent: glacial epoch, ice age
Examples of 'glacial period' in a sentence
glacial period
Previous declines into glacial periods took place relatively slowly, over roughly thousands of years.
Fisher, David E. Fire and Ice - the Greenhouse Effect, Ozone Depletion, and Nuclear Winter (1990)