wintry
Americanadjective
-
wintrier,
comparative
-
wintriest
superlative
adjective
-
(esp of weather) of or characteristic of winter
-
lacking cheer or warmth; bleak
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of wintry
First recorded before 900; Old English wintrig (not recorded in Middle English ); see winter, -y 1
Explanation
If it makes you think of winter, it's wintry. Use the adjective wintry to describe a cold, gray January day. The adjective wintry is sometimes spelled wintery. Either way, it describes something that happens in the winter time, or that reminds you of winter in some way. A photograph of your uncle's snow-covered Christmas tree farm shows a wintry scene, and a blustery wind on a February morning will feel wintry. It can also describe a person who is emotionally cool or unfriendly: "Her greeting was wintry, and she refused to shake my hand."
Vocabulary lists containing wintry
Chill Out! Synonyms for "Cold"
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Neighborhood Odes
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Cold
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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:
Atmosphere is integral to the film’s success, fashioning the quiet landscape of wintry Upper East Side Manhattan into an ambience far warmer than the biting New York cold.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026
Jones manages his superb cast with aplomb and cinematographer Wyatt Garfield evocatively captures lower Manhattan’s wintry, burnished glow.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Several of those inside the crowded boat were not wearing life jackets despite the wintry conditions.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
Hail and thunder may mix in with some of the showers, which could be wintry over hills and mountains in Scotland.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026
The air took on a wintry sting as night fell, and in the morning, as I headed up the trail, a glaze of frost sparkled from the rhododendron leaves.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
But for all its sunshine and sad, brave wisdom, “Alcarràs” was, for me, outmatched by a much wintrier competition title.
From New York Times ● Feb. 17, 2022
The wild wind of the Winter’s Tale at its opening would seem to blow us back into a wintrier world indeed.
From A Study of Shakespeare by Edmund Gosse
By the time we reached Wiesen, all the forests were laden with snow, the roads deep in snow-drifts, the whole scene wintrier than it had been the winter through.
From Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, First Series by Horatio Robert Forbes Brown
The wintrier the time, the greener the hope.
From Debit and Credit Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag by Gustav Freytag
As is usual, all the inside men-servants slept, wintrier and summer, in the barn; and that accounts for our good fortune this night.
From Willy Reilly The Works of William Carleton, Volume One by William Carleton
Wallace Stevens is the wintriest character in American poetry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
The set was the wintriest I can ever recall seeing, piled with drifts of artificial snow.
From New York Times ● Jan. 14, 2016
In every forehead now I see a sky Catching the dawn; I hear the wintriest breeze About me blow the news the Lord is nigh.
From The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2 by George MacDonald
In the wintriest circumstances of a prophet’s life God is wide awake: “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
From My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year by John Henry Jowett
His rugged frame, accustomed to all weathers, hardened by years of sleeping beside wide-opened windows in the wintriest of seasons, was always healthily glowing with warmth when others were frankly freezing.
From Red Pepper's Patients With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular by Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
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.
