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sleet

[ sleet ]
/ slit /
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See synonyms for: sleet / sleeted / sleeting on Thesaurus.com

noun
precipitation in the form of ice pellets created by the freezing of rain as it falls (distinguished from hail2).
Chiefly British. a mixture of rain and snow.
verb (used without object)
to send down sleet.
to fall as or like sleet.
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Origin of sleet

1250–1300; (noun) Middle English slete; akin to Low German slote,German Schlossen hail; (v.) Middle English sleten, derivative of the noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use sleet in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for sleet

sleet
/ (sliːt) /

noun
partly melted falling snow or hail or (esp US) partly frozen rain
mainly US the thin coat of ice that forms when sleet or rain freezes on cold surfaces
verb
(intr) to fall as sleet

Derived forms of sleet

sleety, adjective

Word Origin for sleet

C13: from Germanic; compare Middle Low German slƍten hail, Middle High German slƍze, German Schlossen hailstones
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for sleet

sleet
[ slēt ]

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.
The American HeritageŸ Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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