snouter

[Eng. snout; -er.] A pair of cutting shears with one curved blade approximating to the shape of a hog's snout, and used for removing at one cut the cartilage wherewith he roots. snout-ỹ, a. [Eng. snout; -y.] Resembling the snout of a beast. "The nose was ugly, long, and big, Broad, and snouty like a pig." Otway: Poet's Complaint of his Muse. snow (1), s . [A. S. snáw ; cogn. with Dut. sneeuw; Icel. snær, snjár, snjór; Dan. snee ; Sw. sno ; Goth. snaiws ; Ger. schnee; Lith. snēgas ; Ru . snieg ; Lat. nix (gen it. nivis ); Gr. (acc.) nipha , from a nom. niph , not found; niphas a snow-flake; Ir. & Gael. sneachd; Wel. nyf .] 1. Lit. & Meteor.: Aquecus particles frozen in their descent through the atmosphere into separate crystals, afterward uniting into a emblages of crystals called snow-flakes. To view the crystals to advantage under the microscope they should be allowed to fall on a black surface. The finest are observed in the polar regions, where Captain Scores by keenly examined them, arranging them in five cla es. They belong to the rhombohedral or hexagonal system, and so vary that about a you sand forms of them have been observed. Some appear as hexagonal or dodecahedral plates, others as hexagonal prisms, either single or stellate, or terminated by rectangularly placed plates or secondary groups of needles. The angles of these crystals often form secondary centers, around which others of more skeleton form aggregate. Snow does not fall at all on low tropical plains, though it does on high mountains. [SNOW-LINE.] It is absent from Malta: it falls at Palermo on an average one day each year, at Rome two days, at Venice five, at Paris twelve, at Copenhagen thirty, and at St. Petersburg 170. Where it falls it protects the ground from sinking to a temperature which would injure the seeds in the superficial mold. The snow and ice of the polar regions are among the great elements affecting the winds, and through them the climates, of the several regions of the globe. The cold of the snow on the lofty mountain chains is carried down to the tropical places in which they are principally situated, and tempers their heat. [RED-SNOW.] " Snow is the small particles of water frozen before they unite into drops." -Locke : Elements of Nat. Phil., ch. vi. 2. Fig .: Something which resembles snow. "Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease, 'Mid snows of paper and fierce hail of pease." Pope : Dunciad , iii. 262. IMG:content-1663.png:[blocks in formation] snow-bird, s. Ornithology: Fringilla hyemalis , ranging widely over North America. It is about six inches long; head, neck, upper parts of body, and wings slate brown, lower parts of breast, abdomen, and two exterior tail feathers pure white.