1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 1: A Word List for Writers

Snow Words Part 1

Snow: Supernatural?

“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” ~ J. B. Priestly

Where is enchantment to be found? In stories, and some of those stories may become even more enchanting with the inclusion of snow.

Today’s post is the first of two that offer ways to incorporate snow in creative writing.

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 2.

Adjectives to Describe Snow

Adjectives are often the first resource exploited by writers. As you experiment with words in this section, heed opinion adjectives and stacked modifiers.

A
abominable, abundant, accumulated, advancing, ageless, airborne, alpine, ankle-deep, appalling, approaching, arctic, artificial, autumnal

B
bad, barren, beautiful, belated, belly-deep, billowed, billowing, biting, blasted, bleak, blinding, bloodstained, bonnie, bottomless, bright, brittle, bumpy, bygone

C
changeless, chaotic, cheerless, chest-deep, chilling, choppy, clammy, clean, cloud-soft, cohesive, cold, compacted, compressed, concealing, congealed, constant, continuous, cottony, crisp, cruel, crumbly, crunchy, crusted, crusty, crystalline, cushiony

D and E
damp, dazzling, deathly, deep, dense, desolate, dingy, dirty, distant, domed, downy, dreaded, dreary, drifting, dry, dusty, dwindling, early, elusive, encircling, encrusted, endless, enveloping, ephemeral, eternal, evanescent, everlasting, evil, extraordinary

F
fake, fallen, falling, faux, feathery, featureless, fierce, filmy, filthy, fine, firm, flaky, fleecy, flinty, flocculent, floury, fluffy, flying, foamy, foggy, forbidding, forecasted, formidable, frequent, fresh, friable, frigid, frothy, fun, furious, furrowed

G
gentle, ghostly, glacial, glaring, glassy, glazed, gleaming, glinting, glistening, glistering, glittering, gorgeous, gory, grainy, granular, granulated, gravely, grimy, gritty, groomed, grubby, gummy, gusting

H and I
half-melted, hard, hardened, hated, heavy, high, hip-high, honeycombed, icy, immaculate, immeasurable, impassable, impending, implacable, incessant, indefatigable, inevitable, infernal, inhospitable, interminable, intermittent, inviting, iridescent

J to L
jewel studded, knee-deep, lacy, lasting, late, layered, leaden, leftover, light, limitless, liquefied, looming, loose, lovely, low-lying, luminous, lumpy, lustrous

M to O
magnificent, majestic, matted, mealy, measurable, melted, melting, merciless, miserable, moderate, moist, moonlit, muddied, muddy, mushy, nasty, nearby, neck-deep, never-ending, new, numbing, occasional, old, omnipresent, oncoming, orographic, overlying, overnight

P to R
packed, patchy, pathless, pelting, penetrating, perennial, permanent, perpetual, persistent, phosphorescent, pillow-soft, pillowy, pitiless, plastic, plentiful, plowed, polluted, porous, powdered, powdery, pretty, pristine, prolonged, puffy, punctual, pure, raging, rain-saturated, receding, reflecting, refreshing, relentless, reliable, remaining, ridged, rimed, rippled, ruthless, rutted

Sa to Sm
salty, sandy, savage, scant, scattered, sculpted, seamless, seasonal, seeping, semipermanent, serene, shadowy, shallow, sheeted, shifting, shiny, silent, silken, simulated, skiable, sleety, slick, slimy, slippery, sloshy, sludgy, smooth, smothering

So to Su
soaked, sodden, soft, softening, soggy, soiled, solidified, soppy, sparkling, sparkly, sparse, spectral, spongy, spotless, spotty, spring, squeaky, star-studded, starlit, sticky, stifling, stinging, streaming, strong, sudden, sugary, summer, sun-kissed, sunless, sunlit, superincumbent, surrounding

T
tempestuous, terrible, terrific, textured, thawing, thick, thin, threatening, toxic, track-filled, trackless, trampled, treacherous, twilit

U
ubiquitous, unblemished, unbroken, uncleared, undisturbed, unending, uneven, unexpected, ungroomed, uninterrupted, uninviting, unmarked, unmarred, unpacked, unplowed, unpolluted, unpredictable, unpredicted, unrelenting, unseasonal, unspoiled, unstable, unstained, unsullied, unswept, untimely, untouched, untracked, unwelcome, unyielding

V to Y
velvety, vengeful, violent, virgin, waterlogged, watery, waxy, well-trampled, wet, whispering, wild, windblown, wind-driven, windswept, winter, wispy, wondrous, wooly, year-round, yielding

Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.

Snow Similes and Metaphors

Sometimes a figure of speech adds the perfect touch. Be careful not to overdo, though. Provide enough imagery to stimulate the imagination, but not so much that you slow action or bore readers.

Watch everything and everyone around you. Pay attention to visual media, and note phrasing in books. Your scrutiny will inspire new ideas.

Here are a few phrases to stimulate your creativity.

  • a blanket of melancholy
  • a carpet of cotton batting
  • a colorless shroud
  • a crispy meringue tipped with brown
  • a fluffy featherbed
  • a garden of ice
  • a lacy tablecloth with flowers and grass peeping through
  • a landscape frosted with sweet whiteness
  • a serial killer, silent, stalking, waiting to thrust its cold knife into the countryside
  • a wooly white duvet
  • an avalanche of icy death
  • an onslaught of white, blinding and freezing
  • as cold as someone’s icy heart
  • as inevitable as polar nights
  • as quiet and soft as an angel’s wings
  • as rare as ice cubes in Hell
  • as sparse as the hair on someone’s balding skull
  • as welcome as rain at a summer barbeque
  • as white as someone’s lies
  • cookie-sized confetti
  • dirty lather soaping the city
  • disappearing as quickly as dew in the desert
  • feathers of white creating a downy nest in every hollow
  • fluttering white moths kissing noses and chins
  • muddy and slushy snow-gravy
  • powdered gems sparkling in the sun
  • soft as a lover’s kiss
  • sparkling gems floating onto flower and face
  • stardust sprinkling over a Milky Way of upturned faces
  • white concrete
  • white waves rippling over the fields

The Colors of Snow

Snow is often multicolored. Shadows, foreign substances, variable lighting, and other conditions change its tint. It might be shadow-dappled, blue-spattered, mud-stained, or smoke-streaked, for example.

Consider the following ten phrases as a foundation for creating multicolored descriptions of snow.

  • [insert color or colorful object]-dappled
  • [insert color or colorful object]-dotted
  • [insert color or colorful object]-flecked
  • [insert color or colorful object]-pocked
  • [insert color or colorful object]-spattered
  • [insert color or colorful object]-splattered
  • [insert color or colorful object]-spotted
  • [insert color or colorful object]-stained
  • [insert color or colorful object]-stippled
  • [insert color or colorful object]-streaked

If you need a single color, try one of the following.

A to M
ashen, black, bloody, blue green, bluish, brown, brownish, candy-colored [due to algae growth], cement grey, crimson, down grey, empurpled, filthy grey, glare white, golden, green, grey, greyish, gritty grey, hoary (greyish white), mauve

O to Y
off color, orange, pallid, pearlescent, pearly, pink, purple, red [from iron oxide], red with blood, roseate, rosy, ruddy, sidewalk grey, silver, silvery, sooty, watermelon pink [due to algae growth], white, yellow, yellowish

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Colors.

Snow Scents

Although snow is frozen water and shouldn’t have an inherent smell, most people and animals can detect a snowstorm before it hits. Their noses respond to a number of factors, including the increase in humidity.

Characters will experience different olfactory stimuli depending on location and time period. A visitor to Disneyland could smell cinnamon from churros (What? Snow in Disneyland? Story fodder.) But a resident of the 1800s might smell coal fires.

If someone claims that snow smells like apple pie, they’re likely standing next to a bakery or Grandma’s cooling shelf.

The colder the temperature, the more subdued the scent of air. But snow still absorbs scents from the environment, especially when partially melted.

I have seen adjectives like the following used by writers when describing the scent of snow: fresh, fragrant, humid, odorous, perfumed, and stagnant.

However, English provides a myriad of words to choose from. Snow might smell like, reek of, or be redolent with the scent of:

A to D
algae, almonds (cyanide), apple pie, bacon, a bakery, a barbeque, a barn, blood, booze, burning [leaves, plastic, rubber], brushfires, a busy highway, campfires, Christmas, cinnamon, clean laundry, coal fires, coffee, compost, decaying [fill in the blank], diesel, dirt, dog poop

E to M
exhaust fumes, fire, fir trees, a forest, fresh laundry, gasoline, ghetto, gingerbread, Grandma’s kitchen, gunpowder, horse manure, incense, iron, jasmine, kitty litter, landfill, the mountains, mud, musk ox, musty leaves

O to W
an oil refinery, an outhouse, ozone, peppermint, pig manure, pine trees, a polecat, pollution, a pulp mill, roasting [chicken, pork, turkey], rotten cabbage, sewer, skunk, smog, spruce trees, sulfur, Thanksgiving, vomit, warming cars, wastewater treatment plant, wet grass, woodsmoke, wolf, wolverine

Snow: So Much More Than Freezing Water

“We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death. Yet snow is but the mask of the life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man, the tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow.” ~ John Burroughs

Does Your WIP Include Snow?

If your story unfolds in a desert, you could generate intrigue with the addition of wintry precipitation. What would cause snowflakes in the middle of the Sahara? Why would an SUV have ice encrusted on its undercarriage?

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 2.

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Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
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10 thoughts on “1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 1: A Word List for Writers

  1. I am writing a book based on a cold forest and I was really in search of some good metaphors and vocab which could elevate that particular part of the book and I think this page has really helped me a lot. Thank you so much, the selection of words and phrases is quiet unique here.

  2. Hello. I am writing a murder mystery that takes place in the Rocky Mountains. I live in ice and snow during the winter, and so appreciate this list of snow metaphors and descriptors!

    • My pleasure, Donna. Good luck with your murder mystery. Now is the perfect time of year to see, feel, hear, taste, and smell snow and ice — especially in the Rocky Mountains.

      Stay safe!

  3. Kathy—This is just wonderful! You’ve demonstrated—with examples—the richness of associations a gifted writer can bring to her work.

    Your post brings to mind Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Danish author, Peter Høeg. Have you read it? The flinty, intelligent heroine is from Greenland and part Eskimo. She is a deeply knowledgable about the properties of snow and uses that knowledge to solve a murder and ultimately expose a conspiracy to steal Greenland’s vast mineral riches. One of the first Scandi noir novels, it was also made into quite a good movie starring Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne.

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385315147/

    • Thanks, Ruth. I hadn’t heard about the book until now. Sounds intriguing. The link you gave went to a page that shows it as unavailable for purchase, so I tracked it down and took the liberty of modifying the URL. Smilla’s Sense of Snow is now on my Amazon wish list.

      I appreciate the heads-up!

  4. Kathy – I always look forward to these wonderful descriptions for just about everything! When I get the emails that say “100 Ways to Describe…”, I always leap on top of it and open the web page up and save it to my bookmarks!!! I’m currently writing a book and your works help me in so many ways and you, as an Author, have inspired me to keep writing! Thank you for all that you do! You are AMAZING!

    Thank you, and Have a wonderful Holiday!
    Rebecca Kroll

    PS: I have both of your Lexicon books! I wish there were more!

    • Thanks, Rebecca. What a wonderful way to start my day — even better than coffee. Good luck with your writing, and you have a wonderful holiday too!

      P.S. I’m working on The Writer’s Body Lexicon. It’ll be out early next year.

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