Snow

Snow [Snaw (Saxon), sniõ (Su), snee (Danish) sneuw (Dutch), schnee (G), Niege (French), Neve (Italian), Nieve (Spanish), Nix (Latin)]

is a moist vapour, elevated near to the middle region of the air, whence it is thickened into a cloud and reduced into the form of carded wool, then falling down by little parcels. The white colour of snow proceeds from the conjunction of humidity with cold, which naturally engenders the whiteness. If snow falls in summer-time, it is caused by the high mountains, which, cooling the lower region, give bodies unto vapours, and cause them to descend as low as the earth.

Snow [according to the learned Dr. Grow]

as to the form of it, has many parts of it a regular figure, for the most part being as so many little rowels or stars of six points, being perfect and transparent ice, as may be seen upon a vessel of water; upon which six points are set other collateral points, and these always at the same angles, as are the main points themselves.

From whence the true notion and external nature of Snowseems to appear, viz, that not only some few parts of Snow, but originally the whole body of it, or of a snowy cloud, is an infinite mass of icicles, regularly figured, and not one particle of it originally being irregular.

It being a cloud of vapours gathered into drops, which drops forthwith descend; upon which descent, meeting with a soft freezing wind, or at least passing through a colder region of the air, each drop is immediately froze into an icicle, shooting itself forth into several points or Striæ on each hand from its center.

And as to any of them that are not regular in a star like form it happens thus; that still continuing their descent, and meeting with some sprinkling and intermixing gales of warmer air, or, in their continual motion and waftage to and fro, touching upon each other; some are a little thawed, blunted, frosted, clumper’d, and others broken.

And these, though they seem to be soft, are really hard, because true ice, the inseparable property of which is to be hard, and seem only to be soft; because upon the first touch of the finger, upon any of its sharp edges or points, they instantly thaw, or else they would pierce the fingers as so many lancets.

And tho’ snow be true ice, and so a hard and dense body, and yet it is very light, is because of the extreme thinness of each icicle in comparison to its breadth.

For so, tho’ gold is the most ponderous of all bodies, yet when it is beaten into leaves, it rides upon the least breath of air; and so will all other bodies where there is but little matter and large dimensions. As to the whiteness of snow, it is because it consists of parts, all of them singly transparent; but being mixed together appear white, as the parts of froth, glass, ice, and other transparent bodies.

Definition taken from The Universal Etymological English Dictionary, edited by Nathan Bailey (1736)

A merry Snap * Speeks [with Shipwrights]