hailstone
Americannoun
-
hailstones
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hailstone
before 1000; Middle English; Old English hagolstān. See hail 2, stone
Vocabulary lists containing hailstone
Weather and Climate - Introductory
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Weather and Climate - Middle School
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Earth Science - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"These things do sometimes happen, something may have struck the window, for example a bird, a large hailstone, it's not unheard of".
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2024
A person holds up a hailstone during a hailstorm in Girona, Spain August 30, 2022.
From Reuters ● Aug. 31, 2022
The current world record for a hailstone is 8 inches across, or about the size of a volleyball.
From Fox News ● May 5, 2020
That office’s meteorologist-in-charge, Chris Darden, said it was the first U.S. hailstone measured for volume.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 13, 2018
Grinning, he gathered in one sweep all the mucus in his flaring nostrils and let fly a blob as thick as a hailstone.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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Large hailstones, some the size of £1 coins, fell in a 20-minute burst over the city, with some roads also flooded in the city centre.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2025
On Monday night, hailstones piled up in doorways, making it impossible to open them and creating dams that pushed rainwater into buildings, he said.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
Those hailstones can cause significant damage to homes and cars, a growing worry as warming temperatures fuel more destructive storms.
From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2024
Locals were also hit by huge hailstones "bigger than golf balls".
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2023
No thunder, no earthquake that split open the ground, no hailstones big as heads.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.