Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The upper part of a glacier where the snow turns into ice.
  • noun A snow field at the head of a glacier.
  • noun The granular snow typically found in such a field.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A nephew.
  • noun A spendthrift.
  • noun A Middle English form of neaf.
  • noun Same as firn. Also glacier-snow.
  • noun See næve.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geol.) The upper part of a glacier, above the limit of perpetual snow. See glacier.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the upper part of a glacier (beyond the limit of perpetual snow) where the snow turns to ice

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from French dialectal névi, from Vulgar Latin *nivātum, from neuter of Latin nivātus, cooled by snow, from nix, niv-, snow; see sneigwh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Swiss French term névi, from Latin nix, nivis ("snow").

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Examples

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Comments

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  • A young, granular type of snow that's been partially melted, refrozen and compacted. This type of snow is associated with glacier formation through the process of nivation. Névé that survives a full season of ablation is referred to as firn, which is both older and slightly denser. Firn eventually becomes glacial ice.

    February 12, 2008