Winterkill

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The mortality resulting from lethal wintry conditions among a human, animal, and/or vegetal population. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To kill by the conditions of winter, especially the effect of the cold, freezing. transitive

    "From these data it is evident that the frequent low temperatures may have winterkilled many bare fields of common alfalfa before the ice sheets occurred the latter part of February 1922"

  2. 2
    To die from the above effects of winter conditions. intransitive

    "Order new rose bushes to replace any that have winterkilled."

Example

More examples

"From these data it is evident that the frequent low temperatures may have winterkilled many bare fields of common alfalfa before the ice sheets occurred the latter part of February 1922"

Etymology

From winter + kill.

Related phrases

winter killedwinter quarters

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