winter

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun In the Northern Hemisphere, usually the coldest season of the year, occurring between autumn and spring and including the months of December, January, and February. In the Southern Hemisphere austral winter includes June, July, and August.
• noun The season extending from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox.
• noun A year as expressed through the recurrence of the winter season.
• noun A period of time characterized by coldness, misery, barrenness, or death.
• adjective Relating to or occurring in winter.
• adjective Grown during the season of winter.
• intransitive verb To spend the winter.
• intransitive verb To feed in winter. Used with on.
• intransitive verb To lodge, keep, or care for during the winter.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To spend or pass the winter; take winter quarters: hiemate: hibernate.
• To overtake with winter; detain during winter.
• To keep, feed, or manage during the winter: as, delicate plants must be wintered under cover.
• To retain during a winter.
• noun The cold season of the year.
• noun A year: now chiefly poetical, with implication of a hard year or of frosty age.
• noun Figuratively, a period analogous to the winter of the year: a season of inertia or suspended activity, or of cheerlessness, dreariness, or adversity.
• noun The last portion of corn brought home at the end of harvest; or, the state of affairs when all the grainon a farm is reaped and brought under cover; also, the rural feast held in celebration of the ingathering of the crops.
• Occurring in, characteristic of, or pertaining to winter; wintry.
• Specifically, Harelda glacialis, in various parts of the United States. See cut under Harelda.
• See lime-tree winter moth, above.
• noun The part of the old-style hand printing-press which sustained the carriage.
• noun An implement made to hang on the front of a grate, for the purpose of keeping warm a tea-kettle or the like.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To keep, feed or manage, during the winter.
• noun The season of the year in which the sun shines most obliquely upon any region; the coldest season of the year.
• noun The period of decay, old age, death, or the like.
• noun an apple that keeps well in winter, or that does not ripen until winter.
• noun a kind of barley that is sown in autumn.
• noun (Bot.) the name of several American shrubs (Ilex verticillata, Ilex lævigata, etc.) of the Holly family, having bright red berries conspicuous in winter.
• noun (Bot.) A plant of the genus Hamamelis (Hamamelis Viginica); witch-hazel; -- so called from its flowers appearing late in autumn, while the leaves are falling.
• noun (Zoöl.) a statoblast.
• noun (Bot.) a plant (Physalis Alkekengi) of the Nightshade family, which has, a red berry inclosed in the inflated and persistent calyx. See Alkekengi.
• noun (Med.) a form of chronic bronchitis marked by a cough recurring each winter.
• noun (Bot.) a yellow-flowered cruciferous plant (Barbarea vulgaris).
• noun a crop which will bear the winter, or which may be converted into fodder during the winter.
• noun (Zoöl.) The old squaw.
• noun (Zoöl.) an egg produced in the autumn by many invertebrates, and destined to survive the winter. Such eggs usually differ from the summer eggs in having a thicker shell, and often in being enveloped in a protective case. They sometimes develop in a manner different from that of the summer eggs.
• noun ground that is fallowed in winter.
• noun (Bot.) Same as White sage, under White.
• noun (Med.), [Colloq.] pneumonia.
• noun (Zoöl.) See the Note under Flounder.
• noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] the common European gull; -- called also winter mew.
• noun (Med.) See Prarie itch, under Prairie.
• noun (Bot.) Same as Hibernaculum.
• noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] Same as Winter gull, above.
• noun (Zoöl.) any one of several species of geometrid moths which come forth in winter, as the European species (Cheimatobia brumata). These moths have rudimentary mouth organs, and eat no food in the imago state. The female of some of the species is wingless.
• noun oil prepared so as not to solidify in moderately cold weather.
• noun a kind of pear that keeps well in winter, or that does not ripen until winter.
• noun the quarters of troops during the winter; a winter residence or station.