Meaning
Overwhelmed by too much work, correspondence, orders or other demands; swamped. Almost always used predicatively about people, and it stresses sheer volume rather than difficulty; the register is informal and often ruefully emphatic. Informal workplace staple; mildly self-dramatizing but entirely standard. Regional use: General English.
Origin
An American coinage of the later 19th century: etymonline dates the figurative verb sense, 'overwhelm; surround, cover, and imprison', to 1880 in American English, arising in the phrase 'to snow (someone) under'. The image is of heavy snow burying whatever lies in the field, which etymonline illustrates with livestock drifted over by snowfall; applied to work, the piles of tasks bury the worker the way drifts bury the ground. Collins labels it informal and emphatic today. The phrase crossed from American into general British use during the 20th century, and no earlier or non-American origin has been claimed in the sources consulted.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- completely snowed under
- get snowed under
- snow under
- snowed under with work
Usage Examples
- Please send me a short summary instead of the full report; I am snowed under this week.
- The admissions office gets snowed under every January as the deadlines approach.
- Snowed under with orders after the broadcast, the bakery hired two extra bakers by the weekend.