Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Brrr!  What words do you use to describe the wintry weather? There are some great words around the world ...

In Iceland, they talk about gluggaveður which literally means 'window weather' - weather that looks lovely through the window, but is really quite unpleasant once you get outside.

In Japan they refer to fuguyare - a combination of fugu [winter] with kareru [to wither] - this is that specific bleak bareness of the surroundings that comes with the winter season.

In Scotland, in 2015, linguists at the University of Glasgow logged 421 Scots words relating to snow - including unbrak meaning the beginning of a thaw. [tell that to Toni Braxton]

Maybe you are prone to feeling the cold- I know I am. My ears especially react to the icy weather. We bought hats in a CS in Salisbury one surprisingly cold September day, and I now call mine 'My Greta Thunberg Hat because its earflaps and pompoms are just like her Scandi Hat.' 

People who feel the cold in Italy are described as freddoloso, and in Spain they are friolero.  Perhaps they also suffer from brumation - a word coined by an American zoologist in 1965, to describe the sluggish behaviour of reptiles in cold weather.

And we do have a word in English to describe the warmth of sunlight on a winter's day. Now considered obsolete, the word is apricity [maybe people got confused, thinking it was about apricots or April]

However you describe it, just remember to wrap up well. There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing' 

I tried to find the source for this quote - it is attributed to explorer Ranulph Fiennes, walker Alfred Wainwright, comedian Billy Connolly, and 'ancient Norwegian proverb'

Rosie quotes the Dutch cycling mantra to me if I complain about cold, damp weather “Jij bent niet van suiker gemaakt” - that is You are not made of sugar [and you won't melt in the rain]

Do you have 'family' words for cold, wet, or wintry, weather?