Snowy means with snow falling or lying. A snowy morning, snowy fields, a snowy owl.
It covers both the falling and the covering — a snowy day and a snowy landscape. It also means brilliant white: snowy linen, snowy hair. A snowy owl is white for camouflage in exactly that landscape. Note that snowy in older television use meant covered in visual static, from the way an untuned screen looked, which is a sense that died with analogue signals.
1adjectivesnowyWith snow falling or lying.
“On snowy mornings, the children walked to school in thick boots and scarves.”
2adjectivebrilliantlyBrilliantly white.
“The hotel beds were made up with snowy white sheets.”
snowy is a quality of snow.
Old English snawig is snow plus -y. Snow itself goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root that survives in almost every European language, which is unusual.
Old English
snāwiġ
Middle English
snowy
English, today
snowy
From Middle English snowy, snawy; from Old English snāwiġ. by surface analysis, en + snow + y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Everyday Adjectives