nieg

Nieg is a Polish noun meaning snow or frost, used chiefly in archaic or literary contexts. In modern Polish the everyday term for snow is śnieg, and szron denotes frost or hoarfrost; nieg survives primarily in poetry, folklore, and historical writing where it contributes a classical or rustic atmosphere.

The word is attested in Old Polish and belongs to the inherited lexicon of Slavic languages, with cognates in other Slavic tongues that reference winter phenomena. Its usage in texts tends to be poetic rather than technical, and it often appears to evoke coldness, winter landscapes, or harsh weather.

Grammatically, nieg is a masculine noun and follows standard Polish noun inflection; in contemporary usage it is relatively rare outside literary or dialectal speech. Because it is considered archaic or stylistic, dictionaries typically mark it as literary or historical.

In modern times, nieg is primarily of interest to scholars of Polish language and literature, as well as to readers of historical or traditional Polish verse and prose. It is sometimes encountered in regional speech or in contexts of place names and folklore, where the term preserves older linguistic layers of the language.