sleet

American  

[sleet] / slit /

noun

1. precipitation in the form of ice pellets created by the freezing of rain as it falls (hail ).

2. glaze.

3. Chiefly British.  a mixture of rain and snow.

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verb (used without object)

1. to send down sleet.

2. to fall as or like sleet.

sleet British  

/ sliːt /

noun

1. partly melted falling snow or hail or (esp US) partly frozen rain

2. the thin coat of ice that forms when sleet or rain freezes on cold surfaces

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verb

1. (intr) to fall as sleet

sleet Scientific  

/ slēt /

1. Precipitation that falls to earth in the form of frozen or partially frozen raindrops, often when the temperature is near the freezing point. Sleet usually leaves the cloud in the form of snow that melts as it passes through warm layers of air during its descent. The raindrops and partially melted snowflakes then freeze in the colder layers nearer the earth before striking the ground as pellets of ice, which usually bounce. By contrast, hail forms by the accumulation of layers of ice on the hailstone as it moves up and down in the cloud, and hailstones can become much larger than sleet pellets. The word sleet is also used informally to describe a mixture of snow, sleet, and rain.

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Other Word Forms

• sleety adjective

Etymology

Origin of sleet

First recorded in 1250–1300; (for the noun) Middle English slete; akin to Low German slote, German Schlossen “hail”; (for the verb) Middle English sleten, derivative of the noun

Example Sentences

And so, on a black Christmas night, with sleet volleying into their faces, columns of men struggled through some of the most inhospitable fields to ever yield up a victory.

From The Wall Street Journal

With a frost expected, areas where showers or rain and sleet have left the ground damp are at risk of ice becoming a hazard on roads and pavements.

From BBC

An area of rain, sleet and snow moved across the UK overnight into Wednesday morning, leading to some icy patches and some areas waking up to a covering of snow.

From BBC

Scattered showers of rain, sleet and snow are expected overnight into Tuesday, with an ice alert already in place for the north and east Highlands until 10:00.

From BBC

By Tuesday, low pressure brings rain and sleet, with snow possible on higher ground in the northern half of the UK.

From BBC

Related Words

• deluge
• drizzle
• flood
• hail
• mist
• monsoon
• precipitation
• rainfall
• rainstorm
• shower
• showers
• stream
• torrent