Frost

(Heb. kerah, from its smoothness) Job 37:10 (R.V., “ice”); Gen. 31:40; Jer. 36:30; rendered “ice” in Job 6:16, 38:29; and “crystal” in Ezek. 1:22. “At the present day frost is entirely unknown in the lower portions of the valley of the Jordan, but slight frosts are sometimes felt on the sea-coast and near Lebanon.” Throughout Western Asia cold frosty nights are frequently succeeded by warm days. “Hoar frost” (Heb. kephor, so called from its covering the ground) is mentioned in Ex. 16:14; Job 38:29; Ps. 147:16. In Ps. 78:47 the word rendered “frost” (R.V. marg., “great hail-stones”), hanamal, occurs only there. It is rendered by Gesenius, the Hebrew lexicographer, “ant,” and so also by others, but the usual interpretation derived from the ancient versions may be maintained.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. The act of freezing; -- applied chiefly to the congelation of water; congelation of fluids.

2. The state or temperature of the air which occasions congelation, or the freezing of water; severe cold or freezing weather. The third bay comes a frost, a killing frost. Shak.

3. Frozen dew; -- called also hoarfrost or white frost. He scattereth the frost like ashes. Ps. cxlvii. 16.

4. Coldness or insensibility; severity or rigidity of character. [R.] It was of those moments of intense feeling when the frost of the Scottish people melts like a snow wreath. Sir W. Scott. Black frost, cold so intense as to freeze vegetation and cause it to turn black, without the formation of hoarfrost. -- Frost bearer (Physics), a philosophical instrument illustrating the freezing of water in a vacuum; a cryophous. -- Frost grape (Bot.), an American grape, with very small, acid berries. -- Frost lamp, a lamp placed below the oil tube of an Argand lamp to keep the oil limpid on cold nights; -- used especially in lighthouses. Knight. -- Frost nail, a nail with a sharp head driven into a horse's shoe to keen him from slipping. -- Frost smoke, an appearance resembling smoke, caused by congelation of vapor in the atmosphere in time of severe cold. The brig and the ice round her are covered by a strange black obscurity: it is the frost smoke of arctic winters. Kane. -- Frost valve, a valve to drain the portion of a pipe, hydrant, pump, etc., where water would be liable to freeze. -- Jack Frost, a popular personification of frost.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

1. To injure by frost; to freeze, as plants.

2. To cover with hoarfrost; to produce a surface resembling frost upon, as upon cake, metals, or glass. While with a hoary light she frosts the ground. Wordsworth.

3. To roughen or sharpen, as the nail heads or calks of horseshoes, so as to fit them for frosty weather.