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Snow line   /snoʊ laɪn/   Listen
noun
Snow  n.  
1.
Watery particles congealed into white or transparent crystals or flakes in the air, and falling to the earth, exhibiting a great variety of very beautiful and perfect forms. Note: Snow is often used to form compounds, most of which are of obvious meaning; as, snow-capped, snow-clad, snow-cold, snow-crowned, snow-crust, snow-fed, snow-haired, snowlike, snow-mantled, snow-nodding, snow-wrought, and the like.
2.
Fig.: Something white like snow, as the white color (argent) in heraldry; something which falls in, or as in, flakes. "The field of snow with eagle of black therein."
Red snow. See under Red.
Snow bunting. (Zool.) See Snowbird, 1.
Snow cock (Zool.), the snow pheasant.
Snow flea (Zool.), a small black leaping poduran (Achorutes nivicola) often found in winter on the snow in vast numbers.
Snow flood, a flood from melted snow.
Snow flower (Bot.), the fringe tree.
Snow fly, or Snow insect (Zool.), any one of several species of neuropterous insects of the genus Boreus. The male has rudimentary wings; the female is wingless. These insects sometimes appear creeping and leaping on the snow in great numbers.
Snow gnat (Zool.), any wingless dipterous insect of the genus Chionea found running on snow in winter.
Snow goose (Zool.), any one of several species of arctic geese of the genus Chen. The common snow goose (Chen hyperborea), common in the Western United States in winter, is white, with the tips of the wings black and legs and bill red. Called also white brant, wavey, and Texas goose. The blue, or blue-winged, snow goose (Chen coerulescens) is varied with grayish brown and bluish gray, with the wing quills black and the head and upper part of the neck white. Called also white head, white-headed goose, and bald brant.
Snow leopard (Zool.), the ounce.
Snow line, lowest limit of perpetual snow. In the Alps this is at an altitude of 9,000 feet, in the Andes, at the equator, 16,000 feet.
Snow mouse (Zool.), a European vole (Arvicola nivalis) which inhabits the Alps and other high mountains.
Snow pheasant (Zool.), any one of several species of large, handsome gallinaceous birds of the genus Tetraogallus, native of the lofty mountains of Asia. The Himalayn snow pheasant (Tetraogallus Himalayensis) in the best-known species. Called also snow cock, and snow chukor.
Snow partridge. (Zool.) See under Partridge.
Snow pigeon (Zool.), a pigeon (Columba leuconota) native of the Himalaya mountains. Its back, neck, and rump are white, the top of the head and the ear coverts are black.
Snow plant (Bot.), a fleshy parasitic herb (Sarcodes sanguinea) growing in the coniferous forests of California. It is all of a bright red color, and is fabled to grow from the snow, through which it sometimes shoots up.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Snow line" Quotes from Famous Books



... fallen steadily in large, heavy flakes, the road and the fields showed an even, unbroken surface of white; the tops of the taller fences were yet above the snow line, each post wearing a white cap. As the morning advanced the storm increased, the wind blew, and great drifts were indications of its power. The thick clouds of white flakes were thrown in every direction, and only dire necessity, it seemed, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... shipwreck they crossed the dividing ridge and had a view of Salinas or San Buenaventura Valley. It was comparatively narrow, looking straighter than it really was, from the towering Coast Range that rose in vast massive ridges, several of the peaks piercing the clouds and reaching far up into the snow line. This was indeed an impassable barrier to their further progress beyond the valley, had they wished to make the attempt; for among those wild regions, where at midsummer the snow is whirled in blinding eddies, and the storm howls through gorges and canyons, and the lost traveler gropes blindly ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... masonry. At a more lofty line, where the sub-tropical profusion halted in the warning breath of a keener atmosphere, came the scrub growth and beyond that, in succeeding altitudes, the pine belt, the snow line and the film of trailing cloud ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the so-called Rainy Season in California, that give rain to the lowlands, give dry frosty snow to the mountains. But at rare intervals warm rains and warm winds invade the mountains and push back the snow line from 2000 feet to 8000, or even higher, and then come ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... up against it. We labored on and on, until it became evident that the top could not be reached before night, if at all in such a storm, and we concluded to return. The descent was easy and rapid, though dangerous, until we got below the snow line. At the cabin we mounted our horses, and by night were ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... valley, but they were invisible. The vertical walls of the Ebenalp, in which are the grotto and chapel of Wildkirchli, towered over the nearer hills, and I saw with regret that they were still above the snow line. It was impossible to penetrate much farther without better weather; but I decided, while enjoying my trout, to make another trial,—to take the road to Urnaesch, and thence pass westward into the renowned valley ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various


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