snowy
Americanadjective
-
covered with or abounding in snow
snowy hills
-
characterized by snow
snowy weather
-
resembling snow in whiteness, purity, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of snowy
before 1000; Middle English snawy, Old English snāwig. See snow, -y 1
Explanation
Snowy things are covered with snow or resemble snow—like snowy rooftops in the winter or your grandpa's snowy beard that makes him look like Santa Claus. You can use snowy to describe the hills and fields in Vermont during your January visit, and also when you talk about the weather: "Next week looks snowy, but it's going to warm up after that." Things that are the brilliant white color of fresh snow are also snowy, like a swan's snowy feathers or your neighbor's snowy wall-to-wall carpet that you're not allowed to walk on.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
WSJ: There’s a view that weather is a player on the field—that a snowy game in December in Buffalo is part of what football is.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
Waymo unveils the Ojai, its new self-driving taxi that has more leg room and is better equipped for snowy roads.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2026
The former first lady specifically requested the sledding spot to create a place for families to enjoy Chicago’s often snowy winters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Up here, in a starkly beautiful landscape of snowy peaks and glaciers, excavators are carving huge chunks out of the mountains to mine for copper and other minerals.
From Barron's ● May 23, 2026
The pile rustled and birthed another rat, smaller but with the same snowy fur and red eyes as her brother.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
If we take the average of number of days where snow falls in a month, March is actually snowier than December.
From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2026
In snowier news, Mamdani faces a flurry of criticism from police over a snowball fight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
This has led to a persistent pattern of unusually wet, snowier weather in Northern California and unusually dry weather over Southern California and much of the Southwest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025
Key findings from the study include that deer density was significantly lower in areas with colder, snowier winters.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2024
From Syracuse they went north again, into a colder, snowier city—Rochester.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Natural-gas prices have jumped 63% this week in response to forecasts calling for some of the coldest, snowiest weather in years to freeze the country from the West Texas desert to the Great Lakes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
A perk of living in Syracuse — despite its reputation for hard winters and as one of the snowiest places in America — is its relative stability when it comes to other weather elements.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2025
This was recorded back in March 1947 in Denbighshire, North Wales, during the snowiest UK winter of the 20th century.
From BBC ● Dec. 24, 2024
Big Bear Mountain Resort, which operates the Snow Summit, Bear Mountain and Snow Valley resorts, reported its snowiest February on the mountain since at least 2000.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2024
Roses ranging from the deepest crimson to the snowiest white ran above the windows.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
