Emerged in American English in the 1850s meaning a violent blow, then shifted to mean a severe snowstorm in the 1870s; origin uncertain.
A severe snowstorm with high winds, low temperatures, and reduced visibility, typically lasting several hours or more.
Of uncertain but likely Proto-Germanic and possibly Proto-Indo-European origin, via an American English coinage recorded from c. 1829 to 1870. The word blizzard first appears in American regional use (possibly Iowa or the Midwest) meaning a violent blow or volley, then a severe snowstorm by 1870. The most plausible derivation traces it to a Proto-Germanic root *blis- ("to blow, to blaze, to flash"), related to Proto-Indo-European *bhle-/*bhli- ("to blow, to swell"), cognate
The word 'blizzard' in its snowstorm sense was popularized by a specific event: the newspapers covering the devastating winter storms of 1880–1881 in the northern Great Plains adopted the word, which had previously been obscure slang. Before that, the word meant 'a sharp blow' or 'a volley of gunfire.' The weather sense spread so quickly that within a decade the original meaning