also snow-bank, "bank or drift of snow," 1779, from snow (n.) + bank (n.2).
Entries linking to snowbank
snow n.
Middle English snou, from Old English snaw "snow, that which falls as snow; a fall of snow; a snowstorm," from Proto-Germanic *snaiwaz (source also of Old Saxon and Old High German sneo, Old Frisian and Middle Low German sne, Middle Dutch snee, Dutch sneeuw, German Schnee, Old Norse snjor, Gothic snaiws "snow"), from PIE root *sniegwh- "snow; to snow" (source also of Greek nipha, Latin nix (genitive nivis), Old Irish snechta, Irish sneachd, Welsh nyf, Lithuanian sniegas, Old Prussian snaygis, Old Church Slavonic snegu, Russian snieg', Slovak sneh "snow"). The cognate in Sanskrit, snihyati, came to mean "he gets wet."
As slang for "cocaine" it is attested from 1914.
bank n.2
"natural earthen incline bordering a body of water," c. 1200, from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse *banki, Old Danish banke "sandbank," from Proto-Germanic *bankon "slope," cognate with *bankiz "shelf" (see bench (n.)). As "rising ground in a sea or rover, shoal," from c. 1600. As "bench for rowers in an ancient galley," 1590s.
There probably was an Old English cognate but it is not attested in surviving documents. The nasalized form likely is a variant of Old Norse bakki "(river) bank, ridge, mound; cloud bank," cognate with Swedish backe, Danish bakke "hill, rising ground."