Word.ws English Dictionary

winter quarters

winter quarters noun: a place where a wild animal goes to live or hibernate in the winter; hibernacle.

Noun

winter quarters

  1. A place where a wild animal goes to live or hibernate in the winter; hibernacle.
    • In the fall, when the weather begins to get cool, the boll weevils leave the fields and go into winter quarters.1889, R. P. Bledsoe, “Methods of Boll Weevil Control”, in Entomology, volume 1, page 5
    • The present one shows a lot more interest in paved streets and granite skyscrapers than in the dry leaves and rocks and underbrush where foxes, wolves and weasels once had winter quarters.1920, Alvin Howard Sanders, In Winter Quarters, from Dumbiedykes to Town and Back Again, page 114
  2. A place where a farmer, beekeeper, nurseryman, etc. moves their charges in the winter.
    • It is usually a month later than this, and sometimes two months later before we put them into winter quarters. Supposing some of our best bee-keepers place a few colonies in winter quarters now and just about the last couple of favorable days before they put the rest into winter quarters, place...1887, “Our Own Apiary”, in Canadian Bee Journal, volume 3, page 631
    • The pullets should be carefully selected and placed in their winter quarters early in October.1912, W. A. Brown, “Winter Egg Production”, in Report of the W. Va. State Board of Agriculture for the Quarter Ending September 30, 1912, number 27
  3. A more permanent location where a group that normally moves around, such as an army, circus, group of explorers, etc., takes time off to shelter for the winter.
    • to go into winter quarters
    • On the 8th we changed our camp again into the woods near Brandy Station and Mountain Run, where we expected to go into winter quarters.1904, Thomas M. Aldrich, The History of Battery A: First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery in the War to Preserve the Union, 1861-1865, page 270
  4. A place where someone spends one or more winters.
    • But the attempt which has often been made to prove that summer is as favourable a season as winter, and that invalids are extremely foolish to leave their winter quarters at the approach of spring, seems to us most injudicious.1895 March 23, “The Invalid's Spring Programme”, in The Lancet, volume 1, number 3734, page 759
    • Finally, and of greatest importance, are those groups of population which live a nomadic life and move from their winter quarters to summer quarters and back again regularly each year.1957, World Health Organization, Report, page 27

Examples of winter quarters in a sentence

  • In winter, evening bats depart for winter quarters and probably hibernate, although Lowery (1974) obtained records of active individuals in Louisiana in every month except February and December.1983, Rollin Harold Baker, Michigan mammals, page 134:
  • It is usually a month later than this, and sometimes two months later before we put them into winter quarters.1887, “Our Own Apiary”, in Canadian Bee Journal, volume 3, page 631:
  • Whenever possible, during the fall and winter, the cows with calves by their side and yearlings were cut out of the main herd and placed in winter quarters where they have been fed daily.1919, Sessional Papers of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, page 26:
  • The shorter the stay in their winter quarters which rarely offer optimal conditions – the less the plants will be weakened.1992, Halina Heitz, Container Plants: For Patios, Balconies, and Window Boxes, page 25:

Questions about winter quarters

What does winter quarters mean?
Winter quarters means a place where a wild animal goes to live or hibernate in the winter; hibernacle.
How do you use winter quarters in a sentence?
In winter, evening bats depart for winter quarters and probably hibernate, although Lowery (1974) obtained records of active individuals in Louisiana in every month except February and December.
What part of speech is winter quarters?
Winter quarters is a noun.

Words near winter quarters in the dictionary

  1. Winter Olympics
  2. Winter Park
  3. winter plum
  4. winter plums
  5. winter purslane
  6. winter quarters
  7. winter radish
  8. winter radishes
  9. winter rat
  10. winter rats
  11. winter road

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: winter quarters (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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