snow – English noun declension

English noun forms of snow

Noun: snow
Singularsnow
Pluralsnows

Sample Sentences

  • Snow is white, / And lieth in the dike. And every man lets it lye. [1546, John Heywood, chapter IV, in Julian Sharman, editor, The Proverbs of John Heywood. […], London: George Bell and Sons, […], published 1874, →OCLC, part II, page 107:]
  • Didſt thou but knovv the inly touch of Loue, / Thou vvouldſt as ſoone goe kindle fire vvith ſnovv / As ſeeke to quench the fire of Loue vvith vvords. [c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], page 28, column 1:]
  • And vvho doth lead them but a paltrey fellovv,? / Long kept in Brittaine at our mothers coſt, / A milkeſopt, one that neuer in his life / Felt ſo much colde as ouer ſhooes in ſnovv: […] [c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], signature M2, verso:]
  • The top of this Peake [Teide on Tenerife] or Pyramide […] by reaſon of their rare height and affinitie vvith the middle Aerie Region are ſeldome vvithout Snovv. [1634, T[homas] H[erbert], “[Canaria, Teneriffa]”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC, page 4:]
  • He [Ben Jonson] vvas not onely a profeſſed Imitator of Horace, but a learned Plagiary of all the others; you track him every vvhere in their Snovv: […] [1668, John Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay, London: […] [Thomas Newcombe] for Henry Herringman, […], →OCLC, page 14:]
  • Hovv, by the fineſt art, the native robe / To vveave; hovv, vvhite as hyperborean ſnovv, / To form the lucid lavvn; […] [1730, James Thomson, “Autumn. Inscribed to the Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, Esq; Speaker of the House of Commons.”, in The Seasons, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 167, lines 857–859:]
  • Some vapours that aſcend to great heights, vvill be frozen into ſnovv; […] [1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Meteors, and Such Appearances as Result from a Combination of the Elements”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume I, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 347:]
  • A mighty Senate;—some, whose white hair shone / Like mountain snow, mild, beautiful, and blind. [1817 December (indicated as 1818), Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, “Canto First”, in Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. […], London: […] [F]or Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, […]; and C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B[uchanan] M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, stanza LIV, page 28:]
  • No wind that blew was bitterer than he [Ebenezer Scrooge], no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. [1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 4:]
  • When one has been a year at Oxford, there isn't much snow left to soil; […] [1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], “Brown Patronus”, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 2nd, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 158:]
  • The wind had dropped, and the snow, tired of rushing round in circles trying to catch itself up, now fluttered gently down until it found a place on which to rest, and sometimes the place was Pooh's nose and sometimes it wasn't, and in a little while Piglet was wearing a white muffler round his neck and feeling more snowy behind the ears than he had ever felt before. [1928 October 11, A[lan] A[lexander] Milne, “In which a House is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore”, in The House at Pooh Corner, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, pages 3–4:]
  • I'm dreaming of a white Christmas / Just like the ones I used to know / Where the tree tops glisten / And children listen / To hear sleigh bells in the snow [1942 May 29 (date recorded), Irving Berlin, “White Christmas”, performed by Bing Crosby, New York, N.Y.: Decca Records, published 30 July 1942, →OCLC:]
  • Hear the snow crunch, see the kids bunch / This is Santa's big scene / And above all the bustle you'll hear / Silver bells […] [1950 September 8 (date recorded), Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, “Silver Bells […]”, performed by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards, New York, N.Y.: Decca Records, published October 1950, →OCLC:]
  • Oh, I won't ask for much this Christmas / I won't even wish for snow / I'm just gonna keep on waiting / Underneath the mistletoe [1994 August (date recorded), Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff, “All I Want for Christmas is You”, in Merry Christmas, performed by Mariah Carey, Nashville, Tenn.: Columbia Records, published 29 October 1994, →OCLC:]
  • TRUE FACT: On June 8, 1995, Glacier National Park was closed because of too much snow. [2004, George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, New York, N.Y.: Hyperion, →ISBN, page 261:]
  • We have had several heavy snows this year.
  • At Chriſtmas I no more deſire a Roſe, / Then vviſh a Snovv in Mayes nevv fangled ſhovves: / But like of each thing that in ſeaſon grovves. [c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], signature [A3], verso:]
  • [H]ovv calm he ſits at eaſe, / Mid ſnovvs of paper, and fierce hail of peaſe? [1728, [Alexander Pope], “Book the Third”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC, page 47, lines 211–212:]
  • The blasts of autumn drive the winged seeds / Over the earth,—next come the snows, and rain, / And frosts, and storms, which dreary winter leads / Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train; […] [1817 December (indicated as 1818), Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, “Canto Ninth”, in Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. […], London: […] [F]or Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, […]; and C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B[uchanan] M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, stanza XXI, page 203:]
  • [G]reat white tassels, swinging from every tree in the breeze which swept down the glade, tossed in their faces a fragrant snow of blossoms, and glittering drops of perfumed dew. [1855, Charles Kingsley, “What Befel at La Guayra”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume II, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 301:]
  • They sang, that by his native bowers / He stood, in the last moon of flowers, / And thirty snows had not yet shed / Their glory on the warrior's head; […] [1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Earlier Poems.] Burial of the Minnisink.”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1839, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 53:]
  • The path by which we twain did go, / Which led by tracts that pleased us well, / Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, / From flower to flower, from snow to snow: […] [1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 37:]
  • VVhen VVinter ſhuts the Seas, and fleecy Snovvs / Make Houſes vvhite, ſhe to the Merchant goes: / Rich Cryſtals of the Rock She takes up there, / Huge Agat Vaſes, and old China VVare: […] [1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Sixth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 97, lines 223–226:]
  • This River [the Rubicon] is not ſo contemptible as it is generally repreſented, and vvas much increas'd by the melting of the Snovvs vvhen [Julius] Cæſar paſs'd it, according to Lucan. [1705, J[oseph] Addison, “Ferrara, Ravenna, Rimini”, in Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 125:]
  • It must be so—I will arise and waken / The multitude, and like a sulphurous hill [volcano], / Which on a sudden from its snows has shaken / The swoon of ages, it shall burst and fill / The world with cleansing fire: […] [1817 December (indicated as 1818), Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, “Canto Second”, in Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. […], London: […] [F]or Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, […]; and C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B[uchanan] M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, stanza XIV, page 39:]
  • [H]is mind at least will defy your influence, as the snows of that Mount Blanc which we saw together, shrink not under the heat of the summer sun. [1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter VI, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 159:]
  • [I]t well may happen yonder, where the far snows blanch / Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and hears an avalanche,— […] [1877 September 14, Robert Browning, “La Saisiaz”, in La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croisic, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, →OCLC, page 24:]
  • apple snow    lemon snow
  • The daughters of the land were beautiful, with blue eyes and fair hair, and bosoms of snow, […] [1827, [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Chronicles of the Canongate; […], volume I (The Highland Widow), Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 237:]
  • A scent of pine-wood from a tent-like pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to the open window opposite; […] [1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “The Workshop”, in Adam Bede […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, pages 1–2:]
  • Near-synonym: static
  • I took my TV over on the first trip. I got a beauty. It's four years old, color, but when I had a little snow and asked the repairman to come in, he told me never, never turn this set in for a new one. They don't make them like this anymore, he said. He got rid of the snow and all he charged me was two dollars. [1977, John Cheever, Falconer (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 209:]
  • Indeed, to the laſt days of her life, my Lady Viſcounteſs had the comfort of fancying herſelf beautiful, and perſiſted in blooming up to the very midſt of winter, painting roſes on her cheeks long after their natural ſeaſon, and attiring herſelf like ſummer though her head was covered with ſnow. [1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Relates How Francis, Fourth Viscount, Arrives at Castlewood”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume I, London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC, pages 53–54:]
  • Ere now marmoreal floods had spread their couch / Of perdurable snow, or granite wrought / Its skyward impulse from earth's hearth of fire / Up to insanest heights. [1848, Philip James Bailey, “Proëm”, in Festus: A Poem, 3rd edition, London: William Pickering, →OCLC, page vii:]
  • Clad in a coldsuit Jael trudged through a thin layer of CO₂ snow towards the gates of the Arena. [2008, Neal Asher, “Alien Archaeology”, in The Gabble and Other Stories, London: Tor, →ISBN, page 144:]
  • Lower down, in the 95 per cent of the ocean where light does not penetrate, many living things feed on ‘marine snow’, the steady drizzle of particles of dead matter, whitish in colour, gradually sinking from the euphotic zone above. Other animals then feed on the ‘snow’ eaters. [2012, Caspar Henderson, “Sea Butterfly”, in The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary, 1st American edition, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, published 2013, →ISBN, marginal note, page 286:]
  • Aren’t I telling you that’s why I didn’t taste it? […] Besides, if it wasn’t poison, it might be ‘snow’ or something. [1930, Dorothy L. Sayers, chapter X, in Strong Poison, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, published April 1967, →ISBN, page 85:]

Etymology

1. The noun is derived from Middle English snaw, snou, snow (“snow; accumulation of snow; snowfall; snowstorm; whiteness”), from Old English snāw (“snow”), from Proto-West Germanic *snaiw (“snow”), from Proto-Germanic *snaiwaz (“snow”), from Proto-Indo-European *snóygʷʰos (“snow”), from *sneygʷʰ- (“to snow”).
2. The verb is derived from Middle English snouen (“to snow; (figurative) to shower”), from snou, snow (noun) (see above) + -en (suffix forming the infinitive of verbs). Displaced Old English snīwan, whence English snew (obsolete).
3. Verb etymology 1, verb sense 2.3.2 (“to convince or hoodwink (someone)”) probably refers to a person being blinded or confused by a snowstorm.
4. The adjective comes from the phrase a snowball's chance in hell, also see snowball clause at Wikipedia.
5. Cognates
6. * Scots snaw (“snow”)
7. * Yola sneew, sneow, snow, snowe (“snow”)
8. * North Frisian Sne, sni, snii, snii'e, snä, snäi (“snow”)
9. * Saterland Frisian Snee (“snow”)
10. * West Frisian snie (“snow”)
11. * Alemannic German schnee, schnei, schnia, schné, schnìj (“snow”)
12. * Bavarian schnea, sghneab (“snow”)
13. * Cimbrian snea, snèa (“snow”)
14. * Dutch snee, sneeuw (“snow”)
15. * German Schnee (“snow”)
16. * Limburgish Schnië, snieë (“snow”)
17. * Luxembourgish Schnéi (“snow”)
18. * Mòcheno schnea (“snow”)
19. * Vilamovian śnej, šnej, śnyi (“snow”)
20. * Yiddish שניי (shney, “snow”)
21. * Danish sne (“snow”)
22. * Elfdalian sniųo (“snow”)
23. * Faroese snjógvur (“snow”)
24. * Icelandic snjár, snjór, snær (“snow”)
25. * Norwegian Bokmål sne, snø (“snow”)
26. * Norwegian Nynorsk snjo, snø (“snow”)
27. * Swedish snö (“snow”)
28. * Gothic 𐍃𐌽𐌰𐌹𐍅𐍃 (snaiws, “snow”)
29. * Irish sneachta (“snow”)
30. * Manx sniaghtey (“snow”)
31. * Scottish Gaelic sneachd, sneachda (“snow”)
32. * Welsh nyf (“snow”)
33. * Latin nix (“snow”)
34. * Ancient Greek νίψ (níps, “snow”)
35. * Latvian snìegs (“snow”)
36. * Lithuanian sniẽgas (“snow”)
37. * Belarusian, Russian, and Macedonian снег (sneg, “snow”)
38. * Bulgarian сняг (snjag, “snow”)
39. * Czech sníh (“snow”)
40. * Polish śnieg, śmiég (“snow”)
41. * Serbo-Croatian сне̑г, сније̑г, snȇg, snig, snijȇg (“snow”)
42. * Slovak sneh (“snow”)
43. * Slovene sneg (“snow”)
44. * Ukrainian сніг (snih, “snow”)
45. * Shughni жиниҷ (žiniǰ, “snow”)
46. * Avestan 𐬯𐬥𐬀𐬉𐬲𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 (snaēžaⁱti, “to snow”)
47. * Sanskrit स्नेह (snéha, “grease, oil”) See: Dutch Nouns 'snee', German Nouns 'Schnee', Danish Nouns 'sne', Faroese Nouns 'snjógvur', Norwegian Bokmål Nouns 'sne', Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns 'snjo', Swedish Nouns 'snö', Irish Nouns 'sneachta', Latin Nouns 'nix', Ancient Greek Nouns 'νίψ', Bulgarian Nouns 'сняг', Czech Nouns 'sníh', Polish Nouns 'śnieg', Slovak Nouns 'sneh', Ukrainian Nouns 'сніг'.

Verbs referencing "snow"

Latin Nouns nix, Danish Nouns sne, Ancient Greek Nouns νίψ, Norwegian Bokmål Nouns snø, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns snø, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns snjo, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns snjór'e.