Winter - what is it? When pronouncing this word, there is an association with winter. This association is correct, since this lexeme refers to crops that grow in conditions of low temperature. Details about what winter is will be described in the article.
Let's look at the dictionary
There are two meanings of the word "winter". Consider them.
Firstly, it is an agricultural term for winter crops, their sprouts.
Second, also in agriculture, this is the field that is occupied by the above crops.
To better understand what winter is, let's give examples of sentences with this lexeme.
Examples of usage
You can give such as:
- Mist hung over the wet field, and every blade of winter was covered with many droplets.
- The tiled red roofs of the villages could be seen from afar, they were very different from the bright winter, cheerfully standing out against its background.
- In the absence of rain, the winter perished in dry land,all hope was for a quick rainfall.
- Saying goodbye to the spring land, the snow shimmered with diamonds among the surrounding winter so that it hurt to look at it.
- I wanted to quickly hide in the forest, but the road, accompanied by winters, stretched for almost a kilometer.
- This year, misfortune happened again, our winter neighbors launched horses. It was useless to fight it.
Better understanding of the meaning of "winter" will be facilitated by considering the origin of this word.
Etymology
It is formed from two parts. The first of them is the preposition "about", and the second is the noun "winter". The latter comes from the Proto-Slavic zīmā meaning "winter". Among other things, it formed:
- Old Russian and Old Slavonic "winter";
- Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian "winter";
- Ukrainian "winter";
- Slovenian zíma;
- Czech, Slovak, Polish zima;
- Lower Luga and Upper Luga zyma.
According to etymologists, the Proto-Slavic noun zīmā goes back to the Proto-Indo-European form g'heim in the same meaning. Related to:
- Lithuanian žiemà meaning "winter";
- Latvian zìema – same as Lithuanian;
- Old Prussian semo in the same meaning;
- Old Indian hḗman meaning "winter" and himás meaning "winter";
- Avestan zyå, zimō meaning "frost" and winter respectively;
- Greek χεῖΜα, which translates as "winter", andχειΜών, denoting a winter storm, as well as χειΜερινός, the meaning of which is "winter";
- Albanian dimën - "winter";
- Latin hiems - "winter", hībernus - "winter", bīmus - "biennial".
Continuing the consideration of the meaning of the word "winter", let's move on to its spelling.
A question of literacy
How do you spell the word "winter"? As a rule, difficulties arise due to the fact that in the second syllable the vowel sound is unstressed. Therefore, it is not clear which letter should be in it - “e” or “i”.
As can be seen from the etymological analysis, the studied lexeme comes from the noun "winter", therefore, the same root word is the same noun in the plural with stress on the first syllable - "winter", as well as the adjective "winter". Therefore, in the word "winter" the letter "and" is written in the second syllable.
The second question that often arises when writing this word is related to the soft sign at the end. The fact is that when pronouncing the softness of the consonant sound "m" can not always be clearly perceived. So is he needed here or not? Answer: yes. What is it about?
There is a rule according to which the soft sign is placed in the nouns of the third declension, related to the feminine, having a zero ending and standing in the nominative case. This is exactly what the word in question is.
Thus, the incorrect spellings are: “earth”, “earth”, “winter”, and the correct one is “winter”.
Winter crop
In conclusion of the consideration of the question of what is winter, let's say a few words about crops with which the word under study is associated.
They are a form of annual cereals, usually cereals, whose life cycle requires overwintering. It can be either one or several months. This requires lower temperatures.
The time of sowing winter crops is autumn. They germinate before the onset of winter, and in the spring their life cycle continues. And they ripen earlier than spring ones. The latter are annual crops sown in the spring.
Usually the yield of winter crops is higher. This is due to the use of moisture reserves in the soil in early spring. But the possibility of growing them exists only in areas where there is a high snow cover and mild winters.
Besides this, winter crops are more demanding on the soil, less drought-resistant. Often, in comparison with spring, their baking qualities are worse. For example, wheat, rye and barley have a winter form.
