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Rare Snow Words χιών Greek ‘snow’ Chionophile Many Canadians are chionophiles, persons who thrive in snow-covered habitats. Chionophile is a rare compound noun made up from two Greek roots. Its first element is the beautiful classical Greek word for snow χιών chion ‘snow’ + philos ‘lover, one who is fond of something.’ Chionablepsia Another word containing this Greek snow root is chionablepsia, the formal medical term for snowblindness, a condition in which the victim is affected with temporary photophobia or blindness due to inflammation and corneal epithelial damage caused by exposure of the eyes to ultraviolet rays reflected from snow or ice. Thus persistent exposure to brightness of snow may induce chionablepsy, a variant spelling of the malady. The medical term is made up of three Greek roots: chion ‘snow’ + a Greek ‘not’ + blepsia Greek ‘the act of seeing’ so that ablepsia (not-seeing) is one of the Greek words for ‘blindness.’ The -blepsia root appears in a few ophthalmological terms like acyanoblepsia, the inability to discern blue colors.
Graupel Graupel is a word used in English meteorology to denote soft hail, from the German word Graupelwetter ‘light-hail weather.’ In Early New High German, graupen and graupeln were weather verbs that meant ‘to hail lightly.’ The word was borrowed into German from a Slavic language, perhaps Upper Sorbian where krupa means ‘hailstone’ or ‘grain hail’ that is, hail the size of wheat grains. To the borrowed and slightly altered Slavic krupa > graupa is added a common Germanic diminutive suffix -el or le, to arrive at the form Graupel whose prime meaning therefore is ‘little hail.’
More unusual snow words next time. You may want to discover the story of other snow words now, namely firn and névé and skiff. Then check out Winter: Etymology of the Word.
Postman's Motto Thousands of Years Old
© 2009 William Gordon Casselman Any comments, corrections, emendations, additional word lore, orders for my books? Please email me at canadiansayings@mountaincable.net
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