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Glite Dictionary
🧳 A winter traveler 🐦 A winter bird
snowbird

snowbird

3 4.9
A person who moves to a warmer place for the winter, often an older adult
  • noun
  • /ˈsnoʊˌbɜrd/
  • US
translation icon : persona que pasa el invierno en el sur
  • The snowbirds flock to the sunny regions as soon as the temperature drops in their hometown.
  • winter population of snowbirds
  • snowbird retirees
  • snowbird season

Did you see a mad dash of, you know, snowbirds trying to get out and buy their beach house?

Examples

  • Clouds gathered on that first day, a few at a time like crows flocking on a telephone wire, just as blue-haired snowbirds were settling poolside for their afternoon canasta games and gossip sessions.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • "Ouray has a large snowbird population," Nauer stated, "and residents fly south during the snowiest months."

    Blog text (15)

  • I became a Florida "snowbird" six years ago.

    Academic text (2006)

  • Or we could buy a second home somewhere else and kind of do the snowbird lifestyle.

  • OK, sure, people are talking about snowbirds, so people who want to be down there for half a year and up here.

  • Um, well, my dad and his wife, they are snowbirds.

    Fragile Seeds (2021)

  • They are hitting Florida because most of the snowbirds are there.

    Blog text (5)

  • November is getting closer, and before that, of course, many of you snowbirds are excited about watching your grandkids go trick-or-treating.

    Blog text (10)

  • "Snowbirds," they’d been called in Florida and out in Arizona.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Every winter, many snowbirds leave the cold North to enjoy the warm beaches in Florida.

Synonyms

bird of passage
vssnowbird
5.1

A bird that travels to another region each year

is a human, often an older adult, who moves to a warmer region for winter

Surface Forms

snowbird singular
snowbirds plural

Morphology

snowbird = snow + bird (semi-transparent) = snow + bird

The sense is a predictable metaphorical extension of 'snow' + 'bird' to mean a person who leaves snowy regions for the winter, but it is figurative rather than literal.

Etymology

Snowbird is also used for people who 'fly south' for the winter because they behave like birds leaving the snow behind. So a snowbird is a person, often an older adult, who moves to a warmer place for the winter.