Nival

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Abounding with snow; snowy; snow-covered (now especially in reference to plant habitats).

    "The observed climate warming during the twentieth century has affected alpine vegetation by increasing vascular plant species richness on nival mountain tops […]"

  2. 2
    Found or thriving in snowy conditions.

    "In 1884 O. Heer published a comprehensive account of the nival flora of Switzerland, in which he listed 338 species of flowering plants found above 2600 m.; of these, 6 were found above 3900 m."

Synonyms

All synonyms
snowcappedsnowy

Example

More examples

"The observed climate warming during the twentieth century has affected alpine vegetation by increasing vascular plant species richness on nival mountain tops […]"

Etymology

From Latin nivalis, from nix, nivis (“snow”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.