snowy
Americanadjective
-
covered with or abounding in snow
snowy hills
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characterized by snow
snowy weather
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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:
Already though, there’s been positive signs for the island foxes and the western snowy plover, a threatened shorebird that has a year-round population on Santa Rosa.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 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
Waymo’s sixth-generation “Waymo Driver” system will debut in the Ojai, designed to better handle snowy conditions and other driving situations.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 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 answering growl was like a deep rumble of thunder, or the roar of a steam engine approaching the station, or the sound of a snowy avalanche on some distant alpine peak.
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
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
It was colder and darker and snowier than ever.
From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
In a wild week for commodity markets, forecasts for some of the coldest, snowiest weather in years continued to propel natural-gas prices.
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
“Did anyone have the snowiest day of the 2023/2024 season being in May on their winter bingo card?” the University of California, Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab asked on the social platform X.
From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2024
“They’re saying that this is going to be the snowiest winter we’ve had in decades,” I say.
From "Amina's Voice" by Hena Khan
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.
