Blizzard

How to spell blizzard

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blizzard

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blizzard mean?

1. nounA severe snowstorm with strong winds and greatly reduced visibility.
2. nounAn overwhelming rush or sudden large quantity of something.

Blizzard in a sentence

• The airport closed for two days when the blizzard buried the runways.

• The new policy triggered a blizzard of complaints from frustrated customers.

• Forecasters warned that a blizzard would hit the northern counties overnight.

• She returned from holiday to a blizzard of unread emails.

Where does blizzard come from?

Language of origin: Other

Blizzard rose to prominence in 1870s American English as the standard term for a fierce snowstorm with driving wind, but its earlier history is genuinely murky, so its origin is best called uncertain. Before its weather sense it appeared in regional American slang for a sharp blow, a sudden burst, or a volley of gunfire, suggesting an imitative coinage for something that hits hard and fast. Some scholars have linked the second half to the common English suffix -ard, the same intensifying ending found in 'drunkard' and 'sluggard', which marks an excessive or extreme thing. The first part may simply echo 'blast' or 'blow', evoking the sound and force of a storm. The word spread quickly through newspapers during the brutal winters of the 1880s, locking the doubled z and the -ard ending into the spelling, which is the main detail a writer needs to recall.

How the word is built

• blizz (imitative of a violent blow or gust)
• -ard (noun suffix denoting an intense or excessive thing)