pogonip

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The Word of the Day for December 31 is: 

pogonip   \PAH-guh-nip\   noun
          : a dense winter fog containing frozen particles that is formed in 
deep mountain valleys of the western United States

Example sentence:
          "The white wafer sun sports a halo, and nearby hills are veiled in 
pogonip." (Bill Croke, _The American Spectator_, March 1997)

Did you know?
          Readers of _The Old Farmer's Almanac_ might recognize the 
odd-sounding warning, "Beware the pogonip!" So what's a pogonip? In the 
mountains of the western United States, the fog condenses into tiny, biting ice 
particles in extremely cold weather. The English-speaking settlers who 
encountered this unpleasant and sometimes scary phenomenon when they went out 
West in the 1800s needed a word for it. They borrowed "payinappih" ("cloud") 
from Shoshone, altering it to "pogonip."





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