When the first snowfall feels months away, fill your icy daydreams with the crispy, frosty delight of winter words. From making snow angels to downing hot cocoa loaded with marshmallows, these are the perfect words that describe what makes living in a winter wonderland so worth it.
Winter Activity Words to Fill the Season With Fun
Break out your ice skates, skis, and pitching arms because we’re hitting you with a flurry of winter activity words.
- Bobsledding
- Caroling
- Ice fishing
- Ice hockey
- Ice skating
- Luging
- Skiing
- Sledding
- Snow angels
- Snowball
- Snowboarding
- Snowman
- Snowmobiling
- Toboggan
- Tubing
Related: Sledding Quotes to Caption the Fun All Season
There are tons of ways to use the winter word list printable above. Give kids words from each list to craft a story, poem, or journal entry, or use it for a practice spelling bee. You can even use it to act out charades as a family when it's too cold to go outside!
Prep for the Winter Weather With These Frosty Words
When Jack Frost is nipping at your nose, you're probably hunkered down under a mountain of blankets waiting for that early morning snow day email. But there’s more to the winter season than wind and snow! Get ready for winter weather through the words that describe it.
- Black ice
- Blizzard
- Chill
- Cold front
- Cold snap
- Freezing Rain
- Frost
- Hail
- Ice
- Icicle
- Polar Vortex
- Sleet
- Slush
- Snow
- Snowflakes
- Snowstorm
- Wind chill
- Windy
Winter officially starts on December 21st or 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere and July 21st or 22nd in the Southern Hemisphere. This is known as the winter solstice, the moment when the Earth's poles are tilted the farthest away from the sun.
Related: Snow Day Activities Kids Will Love
Explore Winter in the Wilds Through These Words
You don’t need to scale Mount Everest or voyage to the South Pole to explore the winter wilderness. Get a taste for the winter animals and habitats that come out in winter with this exciting vocab.
- Arctic
- Arctic fox
- Avalanche
- Caribou
- Elk
- Evergreen
- Glacier
- Hibernation
- Migration
- Moose
- Penguin
- Pinecone
- Polar bear
- Reindeer
- Snow leopard
- Tundra
Winter Clothing Words to Keep You Warm & Cozy
If there's one mission parents have in the winter, it's keeping their kids warm. The piles of sweaters, coats, and gloves might seem like overkill, until the kids come home with one mitten and their outer coat missing. Prep your end-of-year wardrobe with these winter words that’ll keep you warm and cozy.
- Balaclava
- Beanie
- Cape
- Coat
- Earmuffs
- Flannel
- Fleece
- Gloves
- Mittens
- Muff
- Scarf
- Sherpa
- Snow boots
- Socks
- Sweater
- Thermals
- Tights
- Turtleneck
- Wool
Have Your Fill of These Winter Food & Drink Words
Although kids and the kitchen don’t always mix, they can still make their contributions this year by adding their own ingredients or dishes to the holiday menu. From mounds of marshmallows to candy canes galore, there are sure to be multiple grocery trips in the future.
- Apple cider
- Candy canes
- Chestnut
- Cinnamon
- Cranberry
- Eggnog
- Figgy pudding
- Fruit cake
- Gingerbread
- Gingersnaps
- Hot chocolate
- Marshmallows
- Panettone
- Peppermint
- Soup
- Sparkling cider
- Stew
- Sugar cookies
- Sugarplum
- Tea
Winter Wonderland Adjectives to Perfectly Capture the Season's Magic
A wordsmith knows that precision is the name of the game when you’re describing something. Help your kiddos capture the winter wonderland better than any photograph with these adjectives.
- Aglitter
- Angelic
- Bitter
- Blistering
- Chilly
- Cozy
- Crisp
- Crystal
- Enchanted
- Ethereal
- Magical
- Powdery
- Resplendent
- Slippery
- Slushy
- Toasty
- Transcendent
Festive Winter Words to Celebrate the Season
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Yule, or something else entirely, the winter season is chock full of special traditions. Tap into the celebrations with these festive winter words.
- Dreidel
- Garland
- Gifts
- Holly
- Jingle bells
- Menorah
- Mistletoe
- Nutcracker
- Ornament
- Poinsettia
- Ribbon
- Stocking
- Wrapping paper
- Wreath
- Yule log
Find Your Own Winter Words With WordFinder
Back in the day, you could spend hours looking for the right word in a dictionary or thesaurus and still come up empty. Give your kiddos the space to discover the expansive catalog of winter words on their own.
Let them master a wintery-themed Scrabble game with WordFinder. Simply type in your words in the contains field and see what it can conjure up. For example, a simple search of "winter" pulls up all sorts of interesting words like wintergreens, midwinter, and wintersweet.
You can also turn to WordList Finder for even more dazzling winter words. Pop a generic winter word into the contains field, like "snow" for example, and see what options unfold. From snowberry to snowcap, you can expand your knowledge of winter words in a snap.
Dashing Through the Snow & the Dictionary
Words have power; knowing what different ones mean and how to use them can break open a whole new world for kids. There’s bound to be a lot of gift-giving this season. Consider giving your kids a new kind of present — the gift of a broadened mind with these winter words.
