An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Schnee

by Friedrich Kluge

Schnee, masculine, ‘snow,’ from the equivalent Middle High German sné, Old High German snêo, masculine; a common Teutonic term which may be traced back to Old Aryan; this is all the more remarkable, since no words common to the Aryan group can be adduced for ‘hail’ and ‘rain.’ Gothic snaiws, Old Icelandic snœ́r, Anglo-Saxon snâw, English snow, Dutch sneeuw. The common Teutonic snaiwa-z, masculine, ‘snow,’ from an earlier snoigó-s (prior to the Old High German permutation snoighwós) corresponds to Old Slovenian sněgu, Lithuanian snégas, ‘snow’; allied to the Teutonic root snī̆w, from pre-Teutonic snī̆gh, preserved in Modern High German schneien Middle High German snîen, Old High German snîwan. To this corresponds Latin ninguere, ‘to snow,’ and nix (nivis), ‘snow,’ Greek νέφει, ‘it snows’ (φ equivalent to ghw), accusative γίφα, ‘snow’ (all these have lost an initial s before n); Lithuanian snìgti, ‘to snow,’ Old Irish snechta, ‘snow,’ Zend snìż, ‘to snow.’ The Sanscrit root snih, ‘to become damp, melt away,’ is divergent in meaning; it must also be noted that the term for ‘snow’ differs in most of the Aryan dialects (Zend vafra, ‘snow’). Thus we have a West Aryan and Persian (but not an Indian and Armenian) verbal root snī̆gh, ‘to now’; the term ‘snow’ is of more recent origin. See Winter.