wintry

Alternative forms

• wintery (nonstandard)

Etymology

From winter +‎ -y; compare Old English wintriġ (a parallel formation).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪnt(ə)ɹɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: ʹwĭnt(ə-)rē, IPA^(key): /ˈwɪnt(ə)ɹi/, [ˈwɪɾ̃(ə)ɹi]
• Rhymes: -ɪntɹi
• Hyphenation: win‧try

Adjective

wintry (comparative wintrier, superlative wintriest)

1. Suggestive or characteristic of winter; cold, stormy.

   Synonyms: brumal, hibernal, hiemal

   wintry weather

   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 19:

     A faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of gray.

   • 2003 February 24, John Pomfret, “Quake Kills More Than 250 in Western China”, in The Washington Post‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on March 03, 2024‎:

     In one village in Bachu County, more than 1,000 buildings and houses collapsed, according to the state-run New China News Agency. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless and were preparing to spend the night outside in the wintry chill, witnesses said.

2. (of precipitation) Containing sleet or snow.

   Synonyms: sleety, snowy

   It will be cloudy overnight, with outbreaks of heavy rain at times. The rain may turn wintry over higher ground.

3. Aged, white-haired.

   Synonyms: grisly, hoary; see also Thesaurus:old, Thesaurus:elderly

4. Chilling, cheerless.

   Synonyms: bleak, dreary; see also Thesaurus:cheerless

   a wintry remark

   • 1934, Frank Richards, The Magnet: The Bounder's Folly:

     He reached the old ruins at last, dim masses of moss-grown masonry in the glimmer of the wintry starlight.

References

• “wintry”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “wintry” in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: Based on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 7th edition, Springfield, Mass.: G[eorge] & C[harles] Merriam, 1963 (1967 printing), →OCLC.