Word.ws English Dictionary

where are the snows of yesteryear

Syllables: where are the snows of yes·ter·yearUK/ˌ(h)wɛəɹ‿ɑː ðə ˈsnəʊz‿əv ˈjɛstəjɪə//ˌ(h)wɛəɹ‿ɑɹ ðə ˈsnoʊz‿əv ˈjɛstəɹˌjɪ(ə)ɹ/

where are the snows of yesteryear phrase: used to emphasize that life or time passes quickly.

Phrase

where are the snows of yesteryear?

  1. (informal, literary, rhetoric) Used to emphasize that life or time passes quickly.
    • Where is Echo, beheld of no man, / Only heard on river and mere,— / She whose beauty was more than human? … / But where are the snows of yester-year?1869 (date written), François Villon, “[Poems.] Three Translations from François Villon, 1450. I. The Ballad of Dead Ladies.”, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti, transl., Poems, London: F[rederick]...
    • It is in this, also, that he rises out of himself into the higher spheres of art. So, in the ballade by which he is best known, he rings the changes on names that once stood for beautiful and queenly women, and are now no more than letters and a legend. "Where are the snows of yester year?" runs...1877 August, Robert Louis Stevenson, “François Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker: The Large Testament”, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books, London: Chatto and Windus, […], published 1882...

Forms of where are the snows of yesteryear

alternative formwhere are the snows of yester-year

Origin of where are the snows of yesteryear

From the poem “The Ballad of Dead Ladies” by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) (see the quotation below), an 1869 translation of the line “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan” from “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (“Ballade of Ladies of Time Gone By”, written 1461) by the French poet François Villon (c. 1431 – p. 1463).

Questions about where are the snows of yesteryear

What does where are the snows of yesteryear mean?
Where are the snows of yesteryear means used to emphasize that life or time passes quickly.
What part of speech is where are the snows of yesteryear?
Where are the snows of yesteryear is a phrase.
How do you pronounce where are the snows of yesteryear?
Where are the snows of yesteryear is pronounced /ˌ(h)wɛəɹ‿ɑː ðə ˈsnəʊz‿əv ˈjɛstəjɪə/ (UK).

Words near where are the snows of yesteryear in the dictionary

  1. whept
  2. wher-wolf
  3. wher-wolves
  4. where
  5. where are the snows of yester-year
  6. where are the snows of yesteryear
  7. where are the toilets
  8. where are we
  9. where are we going
  10. where are you
  11. where are you from

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: where are the snows of yesteryear (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-where are the snows of yesteryear.wav, En-au-where are the snows of yesteryear.ogg.

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