winter

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The usually coldest season of the year, occurring between autumn and spring, extending in the Northern Hemisphere from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox, and popularly considered to be constituted by December, January, and February.
2. n. A year as expressed through the recurrence of the winter season.
3. n. A period of time characterized by coldness, misery, barrenness, or death.
4. adj. Of, relating to, occurring in, or appropriate to the season of winter: winter blizzards; winter attire.
5. adj. Grown during the season of winter: winter herbs.
6. v. To spend the winter: wintered in Arizona.
7. v. To feed in winter. Used with on: deer wintering on cedar bark.
8. v. To lodge, keep, or care for during the winter: wintering the sheep in the stable.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The cold season of the year. Astronomically winter is reckoned to begin in northern latitudes when the sun enters Capricorn, or at the solstice (about December 21st), and to end at the equinox in March; but in ordinary speech winter comprises the three coldest months—December, January, and February being reckoned the winter months in the United States, and November, December, and January in Great Britain. In southern latitudes winter corresponds to the northern summer. See season.
2. n. A year: now chiefly poetical, with implication of a hard year or of frosty age.
3. n. Figuratively, a period analogous to the winter of the year: a season of inertia or suspended activity, or of cheerlessness, dreariness, or adversity.
4. n. The last portion of corn brought home at the end of harvest; or, the state of affairs when all the grainon a farm is reaped and brought under cover; also, the rural feast held in celebration of the ingathering of the crops.
5. Occurring in, characteristic of, or pertaining to winter; wintry.
6. Specifically, Harelda glacialis, in various parts of the United States. See cut under Harelda.
7. See lime-tree winter moth, above.
8. To spend or pass the winter; take winter quarters: hiemate: hibernate.
9. To overtake with winter; detain during winter.
10. To keep, feed, or manage during the winter: as, delicate plants must be wintered under cover.
11. To retain during a winter.
12. n. The part of the old-style hand printing-press which sustained the carriage.
13. n. An implement made to hang on the front of a grate, for the purpose of keeping warm a tea-kettle or the like.

Wiktionary

1. n. Traditionally the fourth of the four seasons, typically regarded as being from December 21 to March 20 in continental regions of the Northern Hemisphere or the months of June, July and August in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the time when the sun is lowest in the sky, resulting in short days, and the time of year with the lowest atmospheric temperatures for the region.
2. v. To spend the winter (in a particular place).
3. v. To store something (for instance animals) somewhere over winter to protect it from cold.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The season of the year in which the sun shines most obliquely upon any region; the coldest season of the year.
2. n. The period of decay, old age, death, or the like.
3. v. To pass the winter; to hibernate.
4. v. To keep, feed or manage, during the winter.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. spend the winter
2. n. the coldest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox