rafter snapper
rafter snapper noun: a very cold night.
Noun
rafter snapper (usually uncountable, plural rafter snappers)
- A very cold night.
- When the rafter-snapper roared through here in March, there wasn't so much as a wet basement.2001 April 18, Ben Goodridge, “Earth Year”, in alt.horror.werewolves (Usenet)
- When I was a kid the old timers called long, sub-zero nights "rafter snappers," a phrase I never understood until I moved inland to a little cabin surrounded by acres of tall trees.2015, Tim Sample, Answers to Questions Nobody Was Askin' And Other Revelations, page 65
Examples of rafter snapper in a sentence
- "'S what the old-timers call a real 'rafter snapper'", Frank said.2018, Rick Hautala, Winter Wake:
- Last night was a 'rafter snapper', as my grandparents would say.2023, BracedRhombus, Reddit:
Forms of rafter snapper
| plural | rafter snappers |
|---|
Origin of rafter snapper
Originates from the state of Maine, in which the wooden planks and beams of a residential dwelling produce "snapping" sounds during very cold nights.
Questions about rafter snapper
- What does rafter snapper mean?
- Rafter snapper means a very cold night.
- How do you use rafter snapper in a sentence?
- "'S what the old-timers call a real 'rafter snapper'", Frank said.
- What part of speech is rafter snapper?
- Rafter snapper is a noun.
- What is the plural of rafter snapper?
- The plural of rafter snapper is rafter snappers.
Words near rafter snapper in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rafter snapper (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.
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Cite this entry: “rafter snapper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rafter_snapper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.