winter
Americannoun
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the cold season between autumn and spring in northern latitudes (in the Northern Hemisphere from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox; in the Southern Hemisphere from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox).
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the months of December, January, and February in the U.S., and of November, December, and January in Great Britain.
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cold weather.
a touch of winter in northern Florida.
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the colder half of the year (opposed to summer).
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a whole year as represented by this season.
a man of sixty winters.
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a period like winter, as the last or final period of life; a period of decline, decay, inertia, dreariness, or adversity.
adjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of winter.
a winter sunset.
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(of fruit and vegetables) of a kind that may be kept for use during the winter.
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planted in the autumn to be harvested in the spring or early summer.
winter rye.
verb (used without object)
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to spend or pass the winter.
to winter in Italy.
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to keep, feed, or manage during the winter, as plants or cattle.
plants wintering indoors.
noun
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(sometimes capital) the coldest season of the year, between autumn and spring, astronomically from the December solstice to the March equinox in the N hemisphere and at the opposite time of year in the S hemisphere
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( as modifier )
winter pasture
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the period of cold weather associated with the winter
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a time of decline, decay, etc
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poetic a year represented by this season
a man of 72 winters
verb
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(intr) to spend the winter in a specified place
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to keep or feed (farm animals, etc) during the winter or (of farm animals) to be kept or fed during the winter
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wintersimple
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winterssimple
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have winteredperfect
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has winteredperfect
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am winteringprogressive
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are winteringprogressive
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is winteringprogressive
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have been winteringperfect progressive
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has been winteringperfect progressive
Past
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winteredsimple
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had winteredperfect
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was winteringprogressive
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were winteringprogressive
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had been winteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of winter
before 900; (noun) Middle English, Old English; cognate with German Winter, Old Norse vetr, Gothic wintrus; (v.) Middle English, derivative of the noun; akin to wet, water
Explanation
Winter is the coldest season of the year, often bringing snow, shorter days, longer nights, and cloudy gray skies. The word winter describes the season when temperatures drop, and the days grow shorter. It’s a time when nature slows down — trees lose their leaves, animals hibernate, and people bundle up in warm clothes. In some places, winter means snow-covered landscapes, snowball fights, and cozy nights spent by a warm fire, while in others, it might simply mean cooler weather than usual.
Vocabulary lists containing winter
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:
Adopting pets in the winter of their lives seemed like a quick heartbreak only a masochist would want, I argued.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
What we saw in Minneapolis this past winter was, among other extraordinary things, popular constitutionalism in action.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
"It rained a lot this winter; the pastures were very overgrown," Rodriguez said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
Clough said the small skipper needed grass left uncut throughout the year, "because the tiny caterpillar spends the winter inside a grass sheath".
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
To the south were the moors where the reindeer eat moss in winter.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
Many who took up the offer have since moved back -- put-off by harsh winters and low wages.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
A severe weakening, or collapse, could go further, bringing colder, drier winters to the UK and north-west Europe even as the planet as a whole continues to heat up.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Gillison decided to attend Duke University partly to get away from Ohio winters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
During El Niño events, warmer waters move toward the west coasts of the Americas, often bringing wetter winters to California.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 3, 2026
She grew into a nimble young girl of seven winters, a thoughtful girl with shining brown eyes and a wide grin, only missing her two top front teeth.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
The couple has wintered in Arizona and returned to Washington in time for the opening of the Sounders season since 2009, the year the club joined MLS.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 24, 2023
In the classic migration pattern, flocks that wintered in the southern U.S. fly north in the spring, returning to the same spots in the high and sub-Arctic to breed and nest.
From National Geographic ● Dec. 16, 2020
The social pages followed his comings and goings, when he summered in Bar Harbor and wintered in Boca Raton.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 19, 2019
True to their name, they slept and wintered in caves, emerging each spring to blink awake in the Pleistocene sunlight.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 15, 2019
There rabbits and ptarmigan gathered to eat seeds out of the wind, and moose wintered on the twigs of the willows.
From "Julie of the Wolves" by Jean Craighead George
After spending the summer in the Hamptons, Icahn is wintering at his house on the Miami-area island known as Billionaire Bunker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2025
Each year, billions of songbirds migrate between breeding and wintering grounds.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 2, 2025
NRW fitted 15 curlew in Wales with GPS tags in 2022, giving researchers a real-time view of their migration from across Europe to important breeding and wintering areas in Wales.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2024
With fall underway in Antarctica, some bird species are starting to scatter to their wintering areas.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 18, 2024
A man could well despair of getting home at all, if the winds blew him over the Great South Sea—that weary waste, even the wintering birds delay one winter more before the northward crossing.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
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.
