The fresh snow on the ground that day was completely ____ in color.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The mountain tops were covered with thick ____ snow after the heavy storm that hit the region yesterday evening today.
Word Origin & History
Inherited from Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweydós, a byform of *ḱweytós (“bright; shine”).
Cognates
* West Frisian wyt
*Dutch wit
* German weiß
* German weiss
* Norwegian Bokmål hvit
* Norwegian Nynorsk kvit
* Swedish vit
* Danish hvid
* Lithuanian šviẽsti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”)
* Old Church Slavonic свѣтъ (světŭ, “light”), свѣтьлъ (světĭlŭ, “clear, bright”)
* Persian سفید (sefid, “white”), Persian سپید (sepid, “white”)
* Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 (spaēta, “white”)
* Sanskrit श्वेत (śvetá, “white, bright”)
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"white as the whitest lily on a stream."
— c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Holidays:
"While some of the more exotic varieties are becoming more popular with nationwide growers, such as the pale pinkish white pineberry, local farms will frequently plant a few different varieties to best suit their region."
— 2022 May 9, Casey Barber, “Strawberry season has arrived. Here are tips for enjoying spring’s sweetest treat”, in CNN, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2022:
"[…]more white corporations cognizant of the mounting purchasing power of the Negro consumer, have Negro representatives in the field[…]."
— 1949, Wendell P. Alston, “The Green Book”, in The Negro Motorist Green Book, New York: Victor H. Green, published 1949, page 3:
"Ms. Ringwald finds a few things about these films regrettable. One thing she found "significantly disturbing," she wrote, "was how white the films are.""
— 2004 May 9, Michael Joseph Gross, “When the Losers Ruled in Teenage Movies”, in New York Times:
"If you're from Africa, why are you white?"
— 2004, Tina Fey, Mean Girls, spoken by Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried):