Meanings
plural lauwines · alternative lawine
- datedpoeticAn avalanche.
1823, George Bancroft, Poems, Hilliard and Metcalf, page 10, The towers of my castle of lauwines are made; / On chambers of ice their foundations are laid; / Like loftiest pyramids rising in air, / O! who but confesses my turrets are fair.
2 more examples
Once more upon the woody Apennine, / The infant Alps, which — had I not before / Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine / Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar / The thundering lauwine — might be worshipped more;[…]
1812–1818, Lord Byron, “(please specify |canto=I to IV)”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number)I see the young torrent’s first leap towards the ocean, / And the cliff-cradled lawine essay its first motion.
1845, “Púshkin, the Russian Poet. No. II. Specimens of his Lyrics.”, in Thomas B. Shaw, transl., Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume 58, number 357, page 34
Origin
- Latinlābēs“fall”
- Late Latinlābīna
- GermanLawine
- Englishlauwine
Borrowed by Lord Byron from German Lawine, from Late Latin lābīna, from Latin lābēs (“fall”).
More words from German, Late Latin, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
lauwine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lauwine
“lauwine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lauwine. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lauwine,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lauwine.
Source: lauwine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.