means the coldest season of the year, falling between autumn and spring, when days shorten and much of nature goes dormant.

from From Old English 'winter,' shared across the Germanic family (Old Norse 'vetr,' German 'Winter'). The deeper root is debated: many tie it to a Proto-Indo-European sense of 'wet' (a cousin of 'water'), naming the season for its rain and slush rather than its cold — though some link it instead to a root meaning 'white.' Either way, our ancestors counted years in winters, so 'a man of twenty winters' once meant simply twenty years old.