Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A polar weather condition caused by a heavy cloud cover over the snow, in which the light coming from above is approximately equal to the light reflected from below, and which is characterized by absence of shadow, invisibility of the horizon, and discernibility of only very dark objects.
- n. A fluid, usually white, that dries quickly and is applied to printed matter to cover mistakes.
Wiktionary
- n. a heavy snowstorm; a blizzard
- n. an Arctic condition, caused by diffuse lighting, in which the horizon can not be distinguished and physical features are lost in the background
- n. a white correcting fluid used to cover mistakes in typescript
WordNet 3.0
- n. an arctic atmospheric condition with clouds over snow produce a uniform whiteness and objects are difficult to see; occurs when the light reflected off the snow equals the light coming through the clouds
- v. cover up with a liquid correction fluid
- v. lose daylight visibility in heavy fog, snow, or rain
Etymologies
- white + out (Wiktionary)
Examples
“If you haven't already seen the movie, it will spoil nothing to tell you that the accident, discreetly shown as a "Six Feet Under" - style whiteout, is not fatal.”
“You know, Jacqui, when we hear of cases like this we always hear of that term whiteout conditions.”
“Bowman remembered a description he had once heard of the dreaded Antarctic "whiteout" - "like being inside a ping-pong ball.”
“Stetko is suddenly involved in two races against time—first, she needs to solve the mystery before the transfer of personnel and she must solve it before a massive storm moves across the camp, resulting in a storm called a whiteout, where vision the hundred-mile-per-hour winds reduce vision to no more than six inches.”
“We're talking about a complete whiteout, which is what we've been seeing from our live reports.”
“Nearly 2ft of snow fell on Washington today with President Barack Obama dubbing the whiteout 'Snowmageddon'.”
“The pictures are of the base, during the summer (there's light outside...) not the winter and certainly not in the middle of a Phase III (can you say "whiteout" ?)”
“After a sudden "whiteout" that cut visibility to zero, the group inadvertently splintered into three parts.”
“The term 'whiteout' has more than one meaning as being descriptive of weather conditions in snow-covered terrain.”
“The co-existence of these factors produced without doubt the classic 'whiteout' phenomenon which occurs from time to time in polar regions, or in any terrain totally covered by snow.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘whiteout’.
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
I Am A Starfish. I Speak With Paint.
List title totally stolen from she. Right, the stock entry for this list should be a two-word phrase where one of the words denotes a colour; even better if the expression has some metaphoric value...
black dog, tangerine dream, orange roughy, blue moon, blackguard, white house, purple rain, grey nurse, green thumb, yellow fever, sacre bleu, palo verde and 159 more...
-
white phrase/words
how white is used
white acajou, white admiral, White Africa, white ale, white-aproned, white-armed, White Army, white-arsed, white ash, white-ash breeze, White Australia, white-back and 591 more...
-
Words for ice and snow
Environmental Ice and Snow
(excluding all the food ice)ice, icicle, frazil, frasil, sleet, slush, snow, flurry, snowfall, freeze, flash-freeze, quick-freeze and 618 more...
-
Black or White
black and white, snow-white, coal-black, blacksmith, whitesmith, blackball, white-box testing, Blackberry, white pages, black book, white paper, blacklist and 107 more...
-
Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
-
Genericide
Trademarks that have lost their character as indicators of source to become a general term for a product or service.
cellophane, aspirin, butterscotch, escalator, heroin, kerosene, thermos, yo-yo, zipper, dry ice, email, freeware and 106 more...
-
weather woman
bleak, austere, stark, severe, sultry, torrid, raw, crisp, algid, misty, hyetal, pluvial and 17 more...
-
Flying Into Snow
Snow-related words.
I love snow. Send me as much as you can.snow, flake, flurry, sastruga, slush, powder, blizzard, snowman, whiteout, sleet, sneg, salju and 75 more...
-
skipvia's Words
syzygy, egg, lossy, catharsis, impuissance, truckle, obsequious, sequoia, sonot khazoot, alizarin, sepulchre, klister and 434 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for whiteout.
skipvia Usually the result of a blizzard or blowing snow when the light is flat or diffuse, a condition in which the skier or climber is surrounded entirely by white--no horizon, no shapes, nothing. Can be quite terrifying. Nov 10, 2007