whiteoutn.
/ˈwʌɪtaʊt/, U.S. /ˈ(h)waɪtˌaʊt/ 1. Originally and chiefly North American.
a. A blizzard or snowstorm that severely reduces visibility.
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the world > the earth > weather and the atmosphere > weather > precipitation or atmospheric moisture > snow > [noun] > the falling of snow > blizzard
purga1824
blizzard1859
buran1886
whiteout1939
1939 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 2 Dec. 2/5 Snow began falling on the capital, raising hopes..for a ‘whiteout’ which would hide objectives from enemy bombers.
1980 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) May 66 Blizzards—white-outs they call them here [sc. in Labrador]—bring snow that whirls and thrashes and blinds.
1998 A. Shreve Pilot's Wife (1999) 176 She glanced up at the white-out beyond the windows. Already there was a significant accumulation on the lawn.
b. A disorienting meteorological condition of a continuous white cloud layer over open snow or ice-covered ground, in which neither shadows nor the horizon can be seen and physical features are lost in the background. Also as a mass noun.
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the world > matter > light > naturally occurring light > [noun] > light from the sky > white-out
whiteout1946
1946 Sun (Baltimore) 20 Apr. 7/2 The ‘Arctic whiteout’.., a condition of the snow country wherein all land features are camouflaged, ‘blending earth and sky so that the horizon and all landmarks are indistinguishable’.
1959 V. Fuchs Antarctic Adventure vii. 96 A whiteout is something like a blackout in reverse... No surface irregularities in the snow are visible in the diffused, opaque light, but a dark object like a man or a vehicle may be clearly seen.
1984 Times 5 Jan. 9/4 When whiteout exists, by the interaction of sunlight, snow, cloud and reflection, it induces the belief in a pilot that he is flying over flat terrain with unlimited forward visibility.
2001 J. Waterman Arctic Crossing i. 67 The water and ice assume a disorienting sameness, similar to being lost in a whiteout.
2. A white correction fluid used to cover textual errors.
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the mind > mental capacity > memory > effacement, obliteration > [noun] > device for erasing > fluid
Tipp-Ex1962
Liquid Paper1968
whiteout1977
1977 L. O'Donnell Aftershock xiii. 180 You changed the date... Did you cover the original entries with a strip of paper, or did you use white-out?
1999 D. M. Casperson Power Etiquette iv. 73 Avoid using whiteout to correct spelling errors and misprinting.
2008 R. Salkowitz Generation Blend 50 How..could anyone possibly prefer the mess and fuss of typewriter ribbons and whiteout to the elegant convenience of the Delete key?
2011 P. L. Pearce Study of Tourism i. 6 Few older researchers will remember with any fondness the painstaking process of manually retyping whole manuscripts or correcting errors with..‘White Out’.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2015; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1939