Definition of "glissade" [glis•sade]

• A gliding step in ballet. (noun)
• A controlled slide, in either a standing or sitting position, used in descending a steep icy or snowy incline. (noun)
• To perform a glissade. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Probably the most beautiful spectacle ever afforded by the natural world is that of a complete and far-reaching ice-storm, locally known as a glissade, transcending in delicate aerial fantasy the swiftly changing faint green panorama of early spring or the amber hazes of opulent autumn."
• "It seemed as if by a kind of glissade the chain of icebergs had drawn nearer to the island."
• "We immediately took to the word because "glissade," said with just a hint of indeterminate European accent, sounded more respectable than "sliding on our backsides down the face of a snowy mountainside with our snowshoes splayed out in front of us and our poles dragging ingloriously behind.""