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Glite Dictionary
snow on the rooftop

snow on the rooftop

8.3
Gray or white hair that appears with age
  • idiom
  • Informal
: canas
  • She laughed and said, "Just because there's snow on the rooftop doesn't mean I'm slowing down!"

Examples

  • Though there's snow on the rooftop, his eyes still flash with the energy of youth.

  • She has a bit of snow on the rooftop these days.

  • After the storm, real snow on the rooftop sparkled in the morning sunlight.

  • Is that snow on the rooftop or just the lighting?

  • She smiled and said, "Having a little snow on the rooftop just means I've gathered some wisdom over the years."

  • With age comes experience, and I embrace the snow on the rooftop as a sign of my journey through life.

  • Even though there's snow on the rooftop, he still feels young at heart and enjoys new adventures.

Antonyms

youth
143 1.0

The time between childhood and adulthood when someone is young

vitality
9 4.6

Ability of a living thing to survive and grow

How Old

snow on the rooftop
  • Informal
8.3
gray
  • US
29 1.0
silvering
1 5.4

Surface Forms

snow on the rooftop singular
snow on the rooftops plural

Morphology

snow + on + the + rooftop

The sense 'gray/white hair' is metaphorically built from 'snow' (white covering) appearing 'on the rooftop' (top of a structure mapped to the head). While a learner who knows the words can sometimes infer this figurative mapping, it is not a straightforward, literal composition and requires recognizing the rooftop→head metaphor and cultural usage, so the relation is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Snow on the rooftop may come from the simple picture of white snow resting on a house rooftop, like white hair resting on a person's head. So, the phrase is used to talk about 'gray hair' or 'old age'.