Word.ws English Dictionary

firn

UK/fɪə(ɹ)n//fɪɹn/

firn noun: a type of old snow which has gone through multiple thaw and refreeze cycles and thus is made of numerous small icy grains, though it is not nearly as saturated with water as snowcone slush is; can be hard or somewhat soft depending on recent and current weather conditions.

Noun

firn (countable and uncountable, plural firns)

  1. A type of old snow which has gone through multiple thaw and refreeze cycles and thus is made of numerous small icy grains, though it is not nearly as saturated with water as snowcone slush is; can be hard or somewhat soft depending on recent and current weather conditions.
    Synonyms:
    névé

firn meaning in Tamil and Arabic

firn in Tamil

அடைபனி

firn in Arabic

A type of old snow which has gone through multiple thaw and refreeze cycles
ثَلْج حُبَيْبَي ṯalj ḥubaybay

Synonyms of firn

Forms of firn

pluralfirns

Origin of firn

Borrowed from German Firn, from Alemannic German firn (“last year's”), from Old High German firni (“old”), from Proto-West Germanic [Term?], from Proto-Germanic *firnijaz, *fernaz (“foregoing, previous”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“forth, forward, across, through”); cognate with Old English fyrn (“former”), Old Norse forn (“old”), and Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌽𐌴𐌹𐍃 (fairneis, “old”).

Words formed from firn

Questions about firn

What does firn mean?
Firn means a type of old snow which has gone through multiple thaw and refreeze cycles and thus is made of numerous small icy grains, though it is not nearly as saturated with water as snowcone slush is; can be hard or somewhat soft depending on recent and current weather conditions.
What is firn in Tamil?
Firn in Tamil is அடைபனி. See Firn meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is firn?
Firn is a noun.
How do you pronounce firn?
Firn is pronounced /fɪə(ɹ)n/ (UK).
What is the plural of firn?
The plural of firn is firns.

Words near firn in the dictionary

  1. firms up
  2. firmware
  3. firmware engineer
  4. firmware engineers
  5. firmwide
  6. firn
  7. firni
  8. firnification
  9. firns
  10. FIRO
  11. firocoxib

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firn (page history and authors); firn (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-firn.wav.

Cite this entry: “firn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/firn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.