Hoarfrost is probably the most beautiful feature of winter. As it sparkles in the sun, it seems to have sprinkled the tree branches with diamonds. Yet, for such a pretty phenomenon, hoarfrost has sort of a weird name. Hoarfrost. Not very pretty sounding. So, I looked up the word in the dictionary and found that the word ‘hoar’ has a pretty interesting origin. It comes from the Old English ‘har’ meaning ‘old’ and ‘aged’. Cool! Hoarfrost is named for the way it makes the trees grow old and white!