Hoarfrost

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Natalie McIntyre.

I’m calling from Barroqua, Wisconsin.

What’s on your mind?

I’m calling, I haven’t lived in Wisconsin for very long, and a couple weeks ago we had some amazing frost here in the morning that I had never seen before.

And people around town were calling it hoarfrost, and they spelled it H-O-A-R, hoarfrost.

And I’m just wondering where that term comes from.

What does it look like?

Well, it kind of comes in different sorts of shapes.

So the most amazing stuff was on some branches and also on picket fences.

And the best way I can describe it is that it sort of looks like the spikes on the back of a dragon.

Like one inch long or so spiky things sticking out from different things where the frost might develop, I guess, overnight.

Not just dripping and turning into icicles, though, right?

Oh, no, no.

Like growing out, yeah.

Like a small version of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

I don’t know if I know that.

Come on now.

Half the audience. Got it?

Okay.

I didn’t. Don’t worry.

The thing to note is this has happened, I guess, about three mornings in a row, and it was very foggy.

So I think it must happen when there’s a lot of moisture in the air.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, hoarfrost is a beautiful thing.

It’s not like a web or it’s not like even the frost that you see on glass, which has got that crazy kind of almost fractal looking, but it’s like little spikes.

It’s almost like candy crystals.

You ever seen candy crystals made like in some old-timey tourist trap, you know, where they dip the stick in?

Right, the sugar one.

Yeah, like rock candy.

Exactly, when it crystallizes on the stick.

It’s a little more like that, but spiky, right?

Yeah.

And in all directions.

It looks a lot sharper than it is.

It just falls apart if you touch it.

That’s right, yeah.

Yeah, whorefrost is a really interesting word.

We should say it has nothing to do with the ladies of the evening or women of ill repute.

So H-O-A-R comes to us from German, more or less, where there’s a similar word that means distinguished or noble or venerable or majestic.

And apparently it referred to the white hair of an elder, of a respected person, like a father, a grandfather, a mother, or the matriarch of a long line of people.

And it really does, right?

It kind of looks like the wispy white locks of hair of an older person, doesn’t it?

Right, and distinguished seems like a great term for it.

It looks very beautiful.

We’ve had it in English since about 1300.

It’s used in Beowulf, believe it or not, and hoary has kind of diverged to mean several different things.

So besides meaning white with age, it can also mean covered with pale hairs.

It can mean overused or old.

So a lot of different kind of paths it’s taken there.

And I think in German it’s related to the German hair, H-E-R-R, you know, hair barret.

Yeah, you’ll find it.

Distinguished barret, yeah.

But it’s a great word.

Usually you’ll find not the noun form hor, but the adjective form hori is far more common.

It’s a very common journalist.

Love it when they’re making fun of something that they think is outdated or old-fashioned.

And it’s also very literary.

Horial saying or something like that.

That’s right.

Yeah.

We’ll find some pictures online.

It is cool stuff.

It’s very cool.

Well, thank you for letting me know where it comes from.

Our pleasure. Thank you for calling, Natalie.

Okay. Bye-bye.

Take care.

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