Snöflingor

Snowflake Edge 

Jefunne 

Jag fortsätter på Karins tema om snöflingor för plötsligt minns jag att Longfellow har skrivit en dikt som heter "Snow-flakes.

Snow-flakes

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare, 

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

            Silent, and soft, and slow 

            Descends the snow. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression, 

Even as the troubled heart doth make 

      In the white countenance confession, 

            The troubled sky reveals 

            The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded; 

This is the secret of despair, 

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 

            Now whispered and revealed 

            To wood and field. 

                                Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

snö subst. ~n [snön´] 
• nederbörd i form av vita, mjuka, löst sammanfogade iskristaller som faller under den kalla årstiden i st. f. regn{→hagel 1, regn, snöregn}: snöfall; yrsnö; ~n föll i stora flingor; det är ~ i luften det verkar kunna börja snöa
BET.NYANSER: a) om större mängd av (nedfallna) sammanpackade iskristaller av detta slag {→is}: snötäcke; nysnö; skotta ~; ~n låg länge det året b) utvidgat om likn. vitt pulver: kolsyresnö c) spec. om kokain ⟨vard.⟩: sälja ~ på gatan
IDIOM: den ~ som föll i fjol ngt som inte längre är aktuellt; det som göms i ~ kommer upp i tö ingenting kan döljas i längden; ha ~ i håret vara vithårig
HIST.: sedan äldre fornsvensk tid; fornsv. snio(r), snö; gemens. germ. ord, besl. med bl.a. lat. nix 'snö'

snow (v.) 

c. 1300, from the noun, replacing Old English sniwan, which would have yielded modern snew (which existed as a parallel form until 17c. and, in Yorkshire, even later), from the root of snow (n.). The Old English verb is cognate with Middle Dutch sneuuwen, Dutch sneeuwen, Old Norse snjova, Swedish snöga.

Also þikke as snow þat snew,
Or al so hail þat stormes blew.
[Robert Mannyng of Brunne, transl. Wace's "Chronicle," c. 1330]

The figurative sense of "overwhelm; surround, cover, and imprison" (as deep snows can do to livestock) is 1880, American English, in phrase to snow (someone) under. Snow job "strong, persistent persuasion in a dubious cause" is World War II armed forces slang, probably from the same metaphoric image.

snow (n.) 

Old English snaw "snow, that which falls as snow; a fall of snow; a snowstorm," from Proto-Germanic *snaiwaz (source also of Old Saxon and Old High German sneo, Old Frisian and Middle Low German sne, Middle Dutch snee, Dutch sneeuw, German Schnee, Old Norse snjor, Gothic snaiws "snow"), from PIE root *sniegwh- "snow; to snow" (source also of Greek nipha, Latin nix (genitive nivis), Old Irish snechta, Irish sneachd, Welsh nyf, Lithuanian sniegas, Old Prussian snaygis, Old Church Slavonic snegu, Russian snieg', Slovak sneh "snow"). The cognate in Sanskrit, snihyati, came to mean "he gets wet." As slang for "cocaine" it is attested from 1914.

flake (n.) 

"thin flat piece of snow; a particle," early 14c., also flauke, flagge, which is of uncertain origin, possibly from Old English *flacca "flakes of snow," or from cognate Old Norse flak "flat piece," from Proto-Germanic *flakaz (source also of Middle Dutch vlac, Dutch vlak "flat, level," Middle High German vlach, German Flocke "flake"); from PIE root *plak- (1) "to be flat." From late 14c. as "a speck, a spot."