snow

Less common meanings

5. 5
   screen staticnounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

   The shifting pattern of random dots on a television or radar screen when no signal is received or there is interference.

   When the antenna failed, the picture dissolved into snow.

   Radar operators dismissed the snow on their scopes as background interference.

   UsageTakes a little or some, like real snow: a little snow on the screen. Static is broader.

   Similarstatic, noise

   Note

   The screen's own weather. In John Cheever's Falconer (1977), a television shows "a little snow", and the word takes a little and some just as real snow does. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • John Cheever wrote Falconer, first published in 1977. en.wikipedia.org
   • Falconer contains the phrase "a little snow" describing television interference. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   cocainenounslangcountable or uncountable

   A street name for cocaine, and less often for heroin or morphine.

   He'd blown his entire paycheck on snow by Friday.

   Police seized several bags of snow during the raid.

   Similarcoke, blow, powder, charlie, flake

   Note

   Slang that borrows its image from the drug's appearance, a white powder that looks like fresh snow. By 1930, Dorothy L. Sayers's Strong Poison has a character wonder whether a suspect substance might be 'snow' rather than poison, the word still set apart as street talk. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • The drug name refers to its appearance as a white powder. edenmartin.com
   • Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Strong Poison, first published in 1930. gutenberg.ca
   • A character considers whether the substance might be 'snow' rather than poison; the text marks the slang word with quotation marks. gutenberg.org
7. 7
   foolverbslangfigurativelytransitive

   To convince or deceive someone, especially by overwhelming them with confusing information or flattery.

   Slick lawyers can snow a jury with technical detail.

   She snowed the committee with jargon until they approved the budget.

   UsageTakes a person as its object, often with with: snow a jury with detail.

   Similarbamboozle, hoodwink, con, dupe, fool

   Note

   Slang for talking someone around until they cannot see straight, like a blizzard of words. Saul Bellow's narrator in Henderson the Rain King (1959) decides "to snow him a little" with marvelous reports, a case where flattery does the work. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Saul Bellow wrote Henderson the Rain King, first published in 1959. en.wikipedia.org
   • The narrator decides to snow someone with flattering claims about marvelous reports; the quoted wording is exact. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To fall, or make something fall, through the air like snow.

   Ticker tape snowed down over the returning heroes.

   Embers can snow across a whole field when the wind shifts.

   UsageUsually followed by down or upon: confetti snowed down.

   Note

   Here something real does the falling, so the empty it gives way to a true subject: Sabine Baring-Gould's dropped cards go "snowing upon" the front rows of an audience. Poets like to make time the subject, as in Edward Young's "Time on this Head has snow'd" or Tennyson's "A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast". In those lines, the falling whiteness is aging hair. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • Sabine Baring-Gould describes cards falling upon the audience in the front rows, using the exact words “snowing upon”. en.wiktionary.org
   • Edward Young wrote the quoted words, with Time as the subject, in Night Thoughts. gutenberg.org
   • Tennyson wrote the quoted line in The Palace of Art. rpo.library.utoronto.ca
   • Young's snow metaphor refers to hair turning grey with age. gutenberg.org
   • Tennyson's snow metaphor refers to an aged man's white beard. rpo.library.utoronto.ca
9. 9
   dry icenouncountable or uncountable

   A frozen, snow-resembling substance other than water, especially solid carbon dioxide.

   Escaping carbon dioxide chilled into a fine snow around the valve.

   When she squeezed the extinguisher, a cold blast of carbon dioxide snow shot from the horn and smothered the flames.

   UsageUsually with the substance named first: carbon dioxide snow, CO₂ snow.

10. 10
    whipped dessertnouncountable

    A dish, or part of a dish, resembling fallen snow, especially a creamy mixture made by whipping egg whites.

    The chef finished the plate with a delicate apple snow.

    Victorian cookbooks include many recipes for fruit snows served at dinner.

    UsageThe flavor comes first: apple snow, lemon snow.

    Note

    A cook's term that puts the flavor first: apple snow, lemon snow. The snow is often made with whipped egg white, beaten until light and creamy, and the word in front says what it tastes of.

11. 11
    white hairnounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

    The white or silvery hair on the head of an older person.

    Decades at sea had left his beard and hair pure snow.

    He ran a hand through the snow at his temples and joked that his grandchildren had put it there.

    Note

    Age is the usual setting, and the plural is idiomatic: someone's snows means a whole head of white hair, worn or admired. The figure pairs naturally with winter for old age, as Thackeray's aging Viscountess shows, still blooming "up to the very midst of winter". The verb for whitening hair draws on the same image. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Thackeray's narrator describes the aging Viscountess as blooming into metaphorical winter, with snow representing her white hair. gutenberg.org
    • The verb snow can describe the whitening of hair. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    turn hair whiteverbfigurativelytransitive

    To turn someone's hair white, or to give a person a head of white hair.

    Similarwhiten, silver

13. 13
    a winternounliterarycountable

    A stretch of time during which snow falls, often standing for a single winter.

    The old shepherd had seen eighty snows on that mountain, and he could still sense a storm before the sky changed.

    The old trapper had lived through more than seventy snows in those mountains and still read the weather better than anyone.

    UsageUsually with a number in front: seventy snows. Plain prose says winters or years.

    Similarwinter

    Note

    A way of counting years by winters. Longfellow's warrior has not yet seen thirty snows, and Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) measures four years "from snow to snow". Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Longfellow describes a warrior who died before experiencing thirty winters, in Burial of the Minnisink. gutenberg.org
    • Tennyson's In Memoriam was first published in 1850. en.wikisource.org
    • In Memoriam describes four years using the exact phrase from snow to snow. en.wikisource.org
14. 14
    sedateverbslangfigurativelyUStransitive

    To cause someone to be heavily under the influence of a drug; to dope or sedate them.

    After the surgery the nurses kept him so snowed on morphine that he barely remembered the first two days.

    Staff on the night shift often snow restless residents to keep the ward quiet.

    UsageMostly in the passive or as a participle: be snowed, look snowed.

    Similarsedate, dope, drug, tranquilize

    Note

    Raymond Chandler's "She looked snowed, weaved around funny" (1934) shows the typical use, describing the dazed state rather than the act of drugging. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • The quotation is from a story by Raymond Chandler first published in 1934. en.wikipedia.org
    • The quoted wording is accurate and describes someone's dazed condition. ae-lib.org.ua
15. 15
    white blossomnounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

    A dense cluster of white flowers, suggesting a covering of fallen snow.

    By May the cherry trees produced a snow of pale blossom along the avenue.

    The meadow lay under a snow of white clover all through June.

    UsageBest with a qualifier, so readers know flowers are meant: a snow of blossom, summer snow.

    Note

    George Eliot's elder-bushes in Adam Bede (1859) spread "their summer snow", and the clash between season and substance is the whole point of the figure. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • George Eliot wrote Adam Bede. en.wikisource.org
    • Adam Bede was first published in 1859; its first-edition title page bears that year. en.wikisource.org
    • The narrator describes elder-bushes spreading “their summer snow”; the quotation is exact. gutenberg.org
16. 16
    sea spraynounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

    The white foam or spray cast up by the sea.

    Each breaker hurled a burst of snow over the harbor wall.

    Gulls wheeled through the snow blowing off the storm-driven surf.

    Similarspray, foam, spume

17. 17
    white marblenounliteraryfigurativelycountable or uncountable

    Marble of a pure white color, used poetically to evoke its snowy brightness.

    Ere now marmoreal floods had spread their couch / Of perdurable snow, or granite wrought / Its skyward impulse from earth's hearth of fire / Up to insanest heights.

    1848, Philip James Bailey, “Proëm”

    Similarmarble

    Note

    Philip James Bailey's Festus, in its 1848 edition, speaks of "perdurable snow" right beside "marmoreal floods", and it leans on that companion adjective to make the stone plain. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Philip James Bailey wrote Festus. en.wikipedia.org
    • Festus places the exact phrases “marmoreal floods” and “perdurable snow” together. en.wiktionary.org
    • The adjective “marmoreal” supplies the connection with marble. en.wiktionary.org
18. 18
    laundrynoundatedfigurativelycountable or uncountable

    White linen that has been laundered clean.

    Similarlinen, laundry, washing

    Note

    Dated slang that names laundry by its whiteness, and the washing matters: linen becomes snow only once it is clean. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • The linen sense is dated slang. en.wiktionary.org
    • The term figuratively denotes white linen that has been washed clean. en.wiktionary.org
19. 19
    verbslang

    To bluff an opponent in draw poker by betting on a worthless hand or by declining to draw any cards.
20. 20
    noun

    Short for marine snow: a steady shower of tiny particles, mostly dead organic matter, sinking from the upper ocean into the deep sea.
21. 21
    nounslang

    Money, especially in the form of silver coins.
22. 22
    noun

    A square-rigged, two-masted sailing vessel of the 17th to 19th centuries, used in both trade and war, with a small trysail mast set just behind the mainmast.

    An ESTIMATE made of the Annual Expence of a Snow of 120 Tons, and 48 Men (Officers included) Mounting 12 Carriage Guns, beſides Swivels.

    1763, Stephen Theodore Janssen [i.e., Sir Stephen Janssen, 4th Baronet], Smuggling Laid Open in All Its Extensive and Destructive Branches