It’s said there are many ways to describe snow. Write down as many words as you can think of that describe frozen water or winter storms. Then check out some of the lists.

• Poetry & Contingency lists 55 words.
• Farmers’ Almanac has 40 words.
• The Free Dictionary lists 160 words that start with snow for scrabble players as well as lists of words that end with or contain snow.
• KathySteinemann goes overboard with 2000+ words that could be used to describe snow.

Read The Washington Post article There really are 50 Eskimo words for ‘snow’ for more information on anthropologist Franz Boas who studied the life of the Inuit people in the 1880s. “Mentioning his observations in the introduction to his 1911 book “Handbook of American Indian Languages,” he ignited the claim that Eskimos have dozens, or even hundreds, of words for snow.”

• StudioKnow offers 47 Eskimo words for snow with meanings.

50 Words for Snow is a studio album by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush released in November 2011 with seven songs against a “background of falling snow.”

The Scots language beats them all with 421 different snow-related words and expressions. Hear some of them on the BBC.