What do you imagine it to mean?
I'm reading J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and on p47 the word appears:
"Farodia Rassool sits back in her seat. 'This is all very quixotic, Professor Lurie, but can you afford it? It seems to me we may have a duty to protect you from yourself.' She gives Hakim a wintry smile."
Online dictionaries claim that the word's definition is relating to winter, or holding characteristics of winter. What are the characteristics of winter to you, and what do they mean?
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[–] Xylophone [S] ago (edited ago)
Interesting, I forgot about the warm aspect of winter. Surely wintry is of the first way though, in the context of this book?
That sounds weird to say, ironic that winter can be warm and nice, at the same time cold and deadly.
Related question: Could winter be considered lively?
[–] WhiteRonin ago
In the context of the story: deadly might work too.
Why would that be strange? Go outside depending on the snow your perspective changes. Come back inside and curl up with a good book by the fire place.
Lively? Ummm, not really, hibernation is a stronger image. However, sporty could work.
If English isn't your first language and your first language is more literal than symbolic English can be difficult. The English language has more than million words but Shakespeare only used 75,000, Milton used 55,000 and most daily conversation is between 3,500 to 5,000 or so. Because of this low count words start having lots of extra symbolism added. Ogden proposed that you could by on "farmer" level at 1,500 words.
Symbolism like "wintry" is how you take it. I'm just putting some ideas out, if one of them fits for you, great but it's still just my idea of what the author had meant.
[–] Xylophone [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I'm native English, with Japanese too.
I guess my vocab's a bit limited compared to the average English speaker. English in the modern sense is pretty cool though