sleet

[sleet]

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.

verb (used without object)

1. to send down sleet.

2. to fall as or like sleet.

sleet

/ 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

verb

1. (intr) to fall as sleet

sleet

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.

Other Word Forms

• sleety adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of sleet¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of sleet¹

C13: from Germanic; compare Middle Low German slōten hail, Middle High German slōze, German Schlossen hailstones

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.

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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.

Read more on 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.

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The rain mixed with sleet that felt like needles against the skin, and the troika had to go slowly over the muddy roads, which were beginning to freeze.

Read more on Literature

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.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• deluge 
• drizzle 
• flood 
• hail 
• mist 
• monsoon 
• precipitation 
• rainfall 
• rainstorm 
• shower 
• showers www.thesaurus.com
• stream 
• torrent