Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A white coating of ice crystals formed by sublimation of atmospheric water vapor on a surface.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun White frost. See
hoar , a., and frost.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The white particles formed by the congelation of dew; white frost.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Dew -drops which have undergonedeposition andfrozen into icecrystals to form awhite deposit on an exposedsurface , when the air iscold andmoist .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun ice crystals forming a white deposit (especially on objects outside)
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The Artemisia reef, what a fun thing…I love the word hoarfrost, too.
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I did have to look it up, not sure myself, but the explanation was simple really, frozen dew, but the word hoarfrost sounds much more mystical.
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Having a hoarfrost is my absolute favorite thing about winter.
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With the rarity of dew, that of hoarfrost which is nothing but frozen dew, may be associated; nor does hoarfrost often occur, because in Khorassan it rains in the winter too freely, particularly in all such places whose elevation is not sufficient to cause the formation of snow, and hence where other circumstances are favourable for hoarfrosts, _they are too much watered_ as it were, and seldom occur.
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith
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In that year, Dr Joseph Wright printed the fifth volume of the _English Dialect Dictionary_, showing that in the dialects of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, the word for "hoarfrost" is not _rime_, but _rind_, with a derived adjective
English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day 1873
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Yet all sorts of hoarfrost may still come this way.
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Yet all sorts of hoarfrost may still come this way.
Commonplace 2010
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A few days last week we had some freezing fog early in the morning, which leads to hoarfrost.
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Are those miniature street lamps beside hoarfrost coated trees?
Guy glues stuff to head, calls it art. Tyler likey. Tyler 2009
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This morning I woke up to fog filling the air and hoarfrost on the bare trees; looking at this beautiful site, I took a deep breath and a found a large smile upon my face.
zuccaciyecioglu commented on the word hoarfrost
-giggle-
October 2, 2008
dimã©lion commented on the word hoarfrost
the definition seems scientific and recent but the word itself sounds archaic. that's my personal opinion, anyway.
November 22, 2008