Winter v.

[f. WINTER sb.¹ after L. hiemare (in senses 1, 2), hibernare (in sense 1); cf. MHG., MLG., Du. winteren (G. wintern), ON. vetra.]

  1.  intr. To pass or spend the winter; to stay or reside (at a specified place) during the winter; (of animals) to find, or be provided with, food and shelter in the winter.

1382.  Wyclif, Acts xxvii. 12. If on ony maner thei myȝten come to Fenyce, for to wynterne in the hauene of Crete.

1526.  Tindale, Acts xxvii. 12. The haven was nott commodius to wynter in.

1535.  Coverdale, Isa. xviii. 6. The beastes of the earth wyntered there.

1668.  Dryden, Even. Love, II. i. Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another.

1726.  Swift, Gulliver, II. i. Discovering a Leak we unshipped our Goods and winter’d there.

1801.  A. Mackenzie, Voy. Montreal, Fur Trade p. xxvii. About a third of these [middlemen] went to winter, and had more than double the above wages.

1826.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. Pop. Fallacies, xv. What savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unillumined fastnesses!

1828.  Darvill, Engl. Race Horse, Introd. p. ix. Mr. Crooke had a farm at Redland, in Gloucestershire, at which place his horses usually wintered.

1867.  Freeman, Norm. Conq., I. ii. 46. The heathen men wintered for the first time in the Isle of Sheppey.

  fig.  1835.  Dickens, Sk. Boz, Parish, iii. The Miss Willises … seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together.

  2.  trans. To keep or maintain during winter; esp. to provide (animals) with food and shelter in winter. (Also said of the food, or of the land.)

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 530/1. Wyntryn’, or kepe a thynge al the wyntyr, yemo.

1550–1.  Test. Ebor. (Surtees), VI. 306. To wynter theme [sc. two ox twinters] unto such tyme as thei be able to drawe.

1570–1.  in Willis & Clark, Cambridge (1886), III. 594. For vppyng y^e Swannes and wynteryng them … xxiij^s.

1580.  Knaresb. Wills (Surtees), I. 139. To … my wief a cowe and asmoche haie as will wynter hir.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 605. They summered them [sc. sheep] in Apulia, they wintered them in Samnius.

1710.  Hilman, Tusser Rediv., Oct. (1744), 135. If I keep more Sheep than I can Winter.

1824.  Loudon, Green-house Comp., I. 15. The sickly condition of plants wintered in such of these houses as still exist.

1882.  Garden, 18 March, 187/3. I have given up wintering Cauliflower plants.

1883.  Standard, 3 April, 3/5. It should be the aim of the grass-land farmer to summer as many and winter as few animals as possible.

  † b.  fig. To maintain (an opinion) through a period of trial. (Cf. to summer and winter s.v. SUMMER v.¹ 3 b.) Obs. rare.

1608.  Bp. Hall, Charac., II. 108. The Vnconstant … what he will be next, as yet he knoweth not; but ere hee haue Wintred his opinion, it will be manifest.

1618.  T. Adams, Serm. Heb. xiii. 8, Wks. (1629), 853. To winter an opinion is too tedious: hee hath beene many things; what hee will bee, you shall scarce know, till hee is nothing.

  † 3.  intr. To be or become wintry. Obs. rare.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 420/1. To Wyntyr, brumare, brumescere.

  † 4.  pa. pple. Detained by winter weather, winter-bound. Obs. rare.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 251. They sayled to the .49. degree and a halfe vnder the pole Antartyke; where beinge wyntered, they were inforced to remayne.

  5.  trans. To affect like winter, subject to wintry conditions; to make wintry; to chill, freeze. Chiefly fig. (cf. WINTER sb.¹ 1 c).

1622.  J. Taylor (Water P.), Sir G. Nonsence, Wks. (1630), II. 3/2. Time that now summers him, wil one day winter him.

1628.  Ford, Lover’s Mel., IV. iii. I am so … wintred with the tempests of affliction.

1797.  Anna Seward, Lett. (1811), IV. 355. Experience has wintered the aspect of the future.

1857.  G. Meredith, Farina (1894), 304. They uttered noises that wintered the blood.