The scientific name for its genus is taken from the Greek word troglodytes (from "trogle" a hole, and "dyein" to creep), meaning "cave-dweller", and may refer to their tendency to nest in cavities or their foraging behavior, in which the winter wren almost exclusively ground-gleans in thick underbrush.

[6] When Louis Pierre Vieillot, a French ornithologist, described the winter wren in 1819 he considered it a separate species and coined the current binomial name Troglodytes hiemalis.

[11][2] The Eurasian wren was split from the two North American species based on a study of mitochondrial DNA published in 2007.

Measurements:[15] The winter wren nests mostly in coniferous forests, especially those of spruce and fir, where it is often identified by its long and exuberant song.

Although it is an insectivore, it can remain in moderately cold and even snowy climates by foraging for insects on substrates such as bark and fallen logs.

The normal round nest of grass, moss, lichens or leaves is tucked into a hole in a wall, tree trunk, crack in a rock or corner of a building, but it is often built in bushes, overhanging boughs or the litter which accumulates in branches washed by floods.