Also snowline. [f. SNOW sb.1 Cf. G. schneelinie, Sw. snölinie.]
1. The general level on mountains, etc., above which the snow never completely disappears; the lower limit of perpetual snow, or (more rarely) of snow at a particular season.
1835. Partington’s Brit. Cycl. Arts & Sci., II. 712/2. The snow-line, or plane of perpetual snow, is the elevation at which mountains are covered with perpetual snow.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., xi. (1852), 245. As the snow-line is so low in Tierra del Fuego, we might have expected that many of the glaciers would have reached the sea.
1875. Croll, Climate & T., ii. 28. If those currents were warm, they would elevate the snow-line above themselves.
fig. 1839–52. Bailey, Festus, 468. My thought of thee Above all passionate fire-peaks and above The sacred snowline of my heart.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 20 Dec., 2/2. Mr. Haldane … viewing men and things from above his snow-line.
2. (See quot.)
1898. Morris, Austral Eng., 425/2. In pastoralists’ language of New Zealand, ‘above the snow-line’ is land covered by snow in winter, but free in summer.
