Dictionary

névé en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /neɪˈveɪ/
• /ˈnɛveɪ/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from French névé, from the Franco-Provençal (Savoyard) term névi (“mass of snow”), from Latin nivatus "snow-cooled" (< Latin nix, nivis (“snow”)).

Meanings

1. The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier.
   • Then we started up a rise, and to our annoyance found ourselves amongst crevasses once more—very hard, smooth névé between high ridges at the edge of crevasses, and therefore very difficult to get foothold to pull the sledges. 1913, R. F. Scott, chapter XVIII, in Leonard Huxley, editor, Scott's Last Expedition, volume I, Monday, December 25:
2. Young, granular snow on a glacier, which has been partially melted and refrozen since deposition, but has not yet turned into firn by surviving a full season of ablation.
   • The rate of snow-névé accumulation may change many times during the glacier lifetime due to changes in climatic conditions or other factors. Calculations show that the glacier responds fairly quickly to such changes. 1989 January, A. N. Salamatin, A. B. Mazo, “Dynamics of a nonstationary dome glacier in the two-dimensional approximation”, in Journal of Soviet Mathematics, volume 44, Springer, →DOI, archived from the original on 05 Jun 2018, page 38:
   • Haast's 1864 paper does not explain exactly why the glaciers should have come and gone as they did, but it appears that he believed that the onset of glaciation was due to the formation of his "high, plateau-like" range of mountains, acting as a moisture trap, with consequent névé accumulation on a grand scale. 1972 April 27, D. R. Oldroyd, “Haast's glacial theories and the opinions of his European contemporaries”, in Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, volume 3, number 1, Taylor & Francis, →DOI, archived from the original on 27 May 2024, page 9:

Forms

Relateds

firn · nivation

Translations (4)

ca gelera (The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier — see also firn) · es helero (The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier — see also firn) · es nevero (The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier — see also firn) · ru фирн (The firn or snowfield at the head of a glacier — see also firn)