Dislocation climb: is the movement of dislocations in directions not within their glide plane via diffusion. This allows the arbitrary movement of dislocations over obstacles, into other dislocations, and into lower energy configurations.

Climb is a diffusive process whereby the dislocation line moves perpendicular to the dislocation line direction, but within the plane of the extra half-plane of atoms.

Dislocation glide: crystal deformation by the motion of dislocations in a specific slip direction within a specific glide plane. Together the slip direction and glide plane define a unique slip system. See Slip systems.

Dislocation glide results in undulatory extinction (which is nothing more than a bent crystal lattice) and lattice preferred orientation.