U.S. [A modern word, prob. more or less onomatopœic; suggestive words are blow, blast, blister, bluster: the Fr. blesser to wound, has also been conjectured, tut there is nothing to indicate a French origin. As applied to a ‘snow-squall,’ the word became general in the American newspapers during the severe winter of 1880–81; but according to the Milwaukee Republican, 4 March, 1881, it had been so applied in the Northern Vindicator (Esherville, IL) between 1860 and 1870. It was apparently in colloquial use in the West much earlier; but whether Col. Crockett’s use of it in 1834 (sense 1) was fig., taken from the stifling blast, or was the earlier sense, and subseq. transferred to the blast, is not determined.]
1. ‘A poser. (Not known in the Eastern States).’ Bartlett. (? perh. a fig. use of 2, as if a blast they could not stand, a ‘stifler,’ ‘choker,’ ‘settler.’)
1835. Crockett, Tour down East, 16 (Bartlett). During dinner the parson … called on me for a toast. Not knowing whether he intended … to have some fun at my expense, I concluded to go ahead, and give him and his likes a blizzard.
2. A furious blast of frost-wind and blinding snow, in which man and beast frequently perish; a ‘snow-squall.’ Hence Blizzardly, Blizzardous a.
1880. Lett., 29 Dec., fr. Chicago, in Manch. Even. News, 24 Jan. 1881. The thermometer was 17 degrees below zero last night, and it was blowing a blizzard all the time.
1881. Standard, 22 Jan., 5/1. The region [Manitoba] is swept by those fearful blasts known as ‘blizzards’ which send the ‘poudre,’ or dry snow, whirling in icy clouds.
1881. N. Y. Nation, 184. The hard weather has called into use a word which promises to become a national Americanism, namely ‘blizzard.’ It designates a storm (of snow and wind) which men cannot resist away from shelter.
1882. Contemp. Rev., Sept., 350. Those bitter ‘blizzards’ so justly dreaded by all who have to do with live stock.
1883. Lett., in Advance, 1 March. Driving snow, with very blizzardly tendencies.
