snow

About This Root

From Old English snāw (snow), from Proto-Germanic *snaiwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *snóygʷʰos. A basic weather root shared across Germanic languages. Produces vivid compound words: snowflake, snowstorm, snowdrift. The root is remarkably stable — its meaning has barely changed in thousands of years across Indo-European languages (Latin nix, Russian sneg).

Associated Words