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:
A coming-of-age trilogy that traverses icy seas and snowy mountains concludes among the everyday struggles of an Icelandic village.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
Visitors were greeted by security forces in flak jackets, some in military camouflage and others toting submachine guns, scattered amid a landscape of green pastures, wooden chalets and snowy peaks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 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
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
Matthias turned his back upon the snowy owl and strode off with a string of taunts ringing in his ears.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
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
Key findings from the study include that deer density was significantly lower in areas with colder, snowier winters.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2024
Not every species will be able to adapt or move to snowier climates, “so we’ll see the extinction of some animals,” says Bentley.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 17, 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
Easterly winds can bring the UK some of its coldest and snowiest weather - think back to the so-called 'Beast from the East' in 2018.
From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2025
“I’ve seen it a lot here. It happens. April’s actually the second snowiest month in the state of Colorado.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 20, 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.
