Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Snowdrop

Snow′dropˊ

,
Noun.
(Bot.)
A bulbous plant (
Galanthus nivalis
) bearing white flowers, which often appear while the snow is on the ground. It is cultivated in gardens for its beauty.
Snowdrop tree
.
See
Silver-bell tree
, under
Silver
,
Adj.

Definition 2024


snowdrop

snowdrop

English

Snowdrops in winter
Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in Chute, Wiltshire, in England

Noun

snowdrop (plural snowdrops)

  1. Any of the 20 species of the genus Galanthus of the Amaryllidaceae, bulbous flowering plants, bearing a solitary, pendulous, white, bell-shaped flower that appears, depending on species, between autumn and late winter or early spring, all native to temperate Eurasia.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Verb

snowdrop (third-person singular simple present snowdrops, present participle snowdropping, simple past and past participle snowdropped)

  1. (Australia, slang, transitive, intransitive) To steal clothing (especially women's underwear) from a clothesline.
    • 1989, Southerly: The Magazine of the Australian English Association, Sydney:
      MS: There was a lot of snowdropping in those days? SL: Oh, I've never actually stooped to snowdropping; I used to go into shops. Boosting, man, boosting. But you learn how to survive.
    • 1992, Peter O'Toole, Loitering With Intent: The Early Years:
      'Snowdropping' is the business of some poor sods who, often from laundry drying on a clothes line, pinch items of ladies' underwear, take them away and sniff them.
    • 2011, Tony Hardy, Fifteen Percent Pregnant: A Story of Life, and Love, and IVF:
      It'll be like snowdropping clothes from a clothesline. We'll snowdrop a baby.

See also