Definition

1. Noun:

   • The coldest season of the year: The period of the year occurring between autumn and spring, characterized by the shortest days, lowest average temperatures, and, in many regions, snow or ice.
   • A year, especially in the life of a person (poetic/literary): Used to represent a year, often in the context of age or experience.

2. Verb:

   • To spend or pass the winter in a particular place: To stay in a location during the winter months.
   • To keep or maintain (animals, plants) through the winter: To provide care for livestock or plants during the cold season.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:

  • I love the quiet beauty of winter.
  • The old sailor had seen sixty winters. (literary usage meaning 'years')

• Verb:

  • Many birds winter in warmer climates.
  • We winter our horses in the sheltered valley.

Advanced Usage

• "To overwinter": To remain or survive through the winter.
  • The research team overwintered at the Antarctic station.
• "Dead of winter": The middle of winter, when conditions are coldest and most severe.
  • The expedition was launched in the dead of winter.
• "Winter of discontent" (idiom): A period of unhappiness and unrest. (Derived from Shakespeare's ).
  • The strikes marked a winter of discontent for the government.

Variants and Related Words

• Winterize (verb): To prepare something (like a car or house) for winter weather.
  • We need to winterize the cabin before the first snow.
• Wintry (adjective): Characteristic of winter, especially in being cold, bleak, or forbidding.
  • A wintry landscape covered in frost.
• Hibernate (verb): To spend the winter in a dormant state (for animals). This is a related biological concept.
  • Bears hibernate in dens during winter.

Synonyms

• Noun: Cold season, yuletide (specifically referring to the Christmas period within winter).
• Verb: Hibernate, overwinter, hole up.

Related Phrases

• Winter over: Similar to 'overwinter'; to stay through the winter.
  • The ship was trapped and had to winter over in the ice.
• Winter through: To endure or last through the winter.
  • With enough supplies, we can winter through the storms.

Related Idioms

• To be snowed under: To be overwhelmed with work. (While not containing "winter," it uses a winter-related metaphor).
  • I'm completely snowed under with paperwork this week.
• To put something on ice: To delay or postpone something. (Uses a winter-related metaphor).
  • Let's put that proposal on ice until after the holidays.

Noun

1. the coldest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox

Verb

1. spend the winter
   • We wintered on the Riviera
   • Shackleton's men overwintered on Elephant Island