Fjord

Etymology

From Norwegian "fjord," from Old Norse "fjǫrðr." It shares an ancient root with English "ford," a river crossing — both trace to a sense of "a place one passes through."

noun · /fee-ORD/
A long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between steep cliffs, carved by a glacier.
What it names
The dramatic glacier-cut sea valley — a single word for a landform that took an ice age to make.
Example
The ship threaded a fjord walled by cliffs a thousand feet high.
Related idea
A fjord is glacial, deep, and steep-walled; a lagoon is shallow and sheltered by a reef or sandbar.