A hiemal, nival morning settles over Windsor as a faint pogonip clings to trees and the only susurrus is tires on wet snow, sending neighbors scurrying back to their hibernacles in full holiday zugzwang. (Rogr Coryell/Sonoma County Gazette)

Not the normal ones. Not snow and holly and “ugh, relatives.” The weird ones. The words that sound like they’ve already had three hot toddies and are reading obscure poetry at you.

I’ll give you a grab bag of them, with commentary. Think of this as a slightly drunk Victorian lexicon for the dark months.

Everyone knows hibernation. Fewer know brumation, which is what reptiles do in winter: a sort of torpor, a metabolic slow-down.

Great for:

“I’m not lazy, I’m in seasonal brumation.”

Use it in an email to your boss and see what happens.

A fancy Latin-derived adjective meaning “pertaining to winter.” As in hiemal solstice, hiemal gloom, or hiemal depression brought to you by Mariah Carey on loop in every store.

It’s the word “winter” in a velvet cloak. Useless in daily conversation, essential in poems you will never show anyone.

Snowy, full of snow, or relating to snow.

“The forecast is nival with a 90 percent chance of regretting you left the house.”

Pair nival and hiemal in the same sentence and you’ve basically summoned a minor Romantic poet.

A winter quarters or shelter. A snug place to spend the cold months. Your couch, your bed, your blanket fort of denial—these are all hibernacles.

“I’ll emerge from my hibernacle after the solstice, or capitalism, whichever ends first.”

Supposedly: the notch you have to move your belt to after too much Christmas eating. It sounds made up; it is, and also it isn’t, which is the sweet spot for seasonal vocabulary.

“By December 27, I’m on the emergency yule-hole setting.”

A German word that roughly means cozy warmth plus friendliness plus the sense that no one is going to make you go outside. It’s like hygge but with beer and fewer influencers.

Perfect description of: a candlelit living room, socks, board games, someone making soup, no social media.

Also fun to say out loud. Sounds like a contented burp.

Not a standard clinical term, but it should be: the particular emotional funk of dark afternoons, fluorescent office lighting, and songs about chestnuts while your email pings.

“I’m not being dramatic, I’m experiencing acute hibernal dysphoria and require mulled wine.”

Relating to the solstice. Impressively unnecessary for ordinary usage. You could say,

“The solstitial axis marks the year’s deepest darkness,”

or you could say,

“Wow, it’s really dark at 4:30,”

but only one of those makes you sound like you own a cloak and an orrery.

A dense, freezing fog of supercooled water droplets that can form beautiful frost on trees and also your lungs, if you inhale too much of it. The word comes from Shoshone, via some 19th-century settlers who apparently thought, “Yes, let’s keep that, we’ll definitely need a word for murder-fog.”

“That’s not mist, that’s pogonip. Respect it.”

Technically, overindulgence in food or drink and the resulting misery. Emotionally, the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s.

“How are you?” “In a state of advanced crapulence, thanks for asking.”

Put this next to yule-hole and you have a full diagnostic framework.

A drink, a toast, a whole tradition. The word originally meant “be healthy,” and now mostly means “an improbably spiced liquid in a charming mug that is either delicious or tastes like hot medieval potpourri.”

It’s also a verb. You can wassail.

“We went out to wassail the neighbors”

sounds festive, but it’s basically structured loitering with carols.

A soft, whispering sound—like wind through bare branches, or the hushed murmur of people in church who are pretending to listen. A beautiful word that feels like it’s already fogged up the glass.

“The susurrus of the pine trees and the distant, despairing jingle of a Salvation Army bell.”

From Russian folklore: the Snow Maiden, companion to Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost). She’s made of snow, which, like most seasonal workers, has job security only until thaw.

This is a good reminder that many cultures looked at winter and said, “We should add more stories, this is unbearable.”

A winter-blooming flower whose name sounds like a minor demon of the second circle. Often called the Christmas rose, it pushes up through snow with pink or white blossoms, as if to say, “I heard your seasonal affective disorder and honestly, same.”

Not a winter word, strictly speaking—it’s from chess, meaning: every possible move makes your position worse. But if that isn’t the emotional state of the gift-giving season, what is?

“My December finances are in full zugzwang.”

In the end, winter is basically a linguistic excuse to dress up “cold and dark” in as many ridiculous costumes as possible: hiemal, nival, solstitial, pogonip, wassail, gemütlichkeit.

We light candles and plug in LEDs and drag trees indoors and sing at each other, and over the top of all that we drape words—too many, too ornate, too silly. It’s one of our more charming survival mechanisms.

File these for your personal hibernacle. Deploy at parties. Or, more realistically, at small, slightly awkward gatherings where someone says, “It gets so dark early,” and you reply:

“Ah yes, the hiemal onset of solstitial gloom. Top up your wassail?”