A long, narrow sea inlet bordered by steep cliffs, typically carved by glaciers and flooded by the sea. Water threaded deep into land like a cold, shining seam. Where a bay is general geography, a fjord is sculptural: depth, steepness, and glacial history written in the shoreline.

From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse fjǫrðr “inlet, passage.” The word carries the geography that coined it—coasts where glaciers once did the carving and the sea moved in to occupy the shape.