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:
Picture a black-and-white shot of a wintry mansion where a Minion lies dying in an upstairs bedroom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
He’s just taken a morning stroll in New York with his girlfriend, Dominican architect Ana Amelia Batlle Cabral, and is still defrosting from the wintry chill; he’ll be fully warmed up upon landing in California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026
The government has credited wintry weather with a recent lull in the disease.
From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026
Francesco's screen time can sometimes tip over the hour mark, Sam says, especially on wintry weekends, but argues that is not necessarily a bad thing.
From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2026
I walked back inside the performance space as Mrs. Atanabi finished unwrapping herself from all her wintry layers.
From "Auggie & Me" by R. J. Palacio
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
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
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
The wintrier the time, the greener the hope.
From Debit and Credit Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag by Gustav Freytag
And perhaps on one or two of life's wintrier nights some sort of spiritual comforter thrown over all.
From The Sick-a-Bed Lady And Also Hickory Dock, The Very Tired Girl, The Happy-Day, Something That Happened in October, The Amateur Lover, Heart of The City, The Pink Sash, Woman's Only Business by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
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
But, there! he's gone! and I gaze on The wintriest of weather!
From Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) by Bill Nye
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
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.
