sleet
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
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sleets,
present (3rd person singular)
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sleeted,
past participle, past
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sleeting
present participle
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to send down sleet.
-
to fall as or like sleet.
noun
-
partly melted falling snow or hail or (esp US) partly frozen rain
-
the thin coat of ice that forms when sleet or rain freezes on cold surfaces
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sleetsimple
-
sleetssimple
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have sleetedperfect
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has sleetedperfect
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am sleetingprogressive
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are sleetingprogressive
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is sleetingprogressive
-
have been sleetingperfect progressive
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has been sleetingperfect progressive
Past
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sleetedsimple
-
had sleetedperfect
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was sleetingprogressive
-
were sleetingprogressive
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had been sleetingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
Frozen rain, or melty snow, is called sleet. Walking in the snow can be lovely, but walking in sleet is just cold and unpleasant. Sleet is a type of precipitation, and it's also a verb: "Is it starting to sleet out there? Let's stay in and watch TV tonight." In the U.S., sleet is the name for small ice pellets—if you've ever heard the weather person talk about a "wintry mix," it usually includes sleet along with snow and freezing rain. The word dates from the very early 14th century, from a Germanic root.
Vocabulary lists containing sleet
Physical Geography - Introductory
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Weather and Climate - Introductory
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Physical Geography - 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:
River’s constantly tilted forward, against rain, sleet and wind.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Kirsteen said showers and cold air were a "perfect recipe" for sleet and snow.
From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2026
In some sections, workers struggle to repair sections of netting torn by sleet and ice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026
It warns of “crippling ice and sleet to portions of the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley Friday.”
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
Snow and sleet blew horizontally, battering our faces.
From "Salt to the Sea" by Ruta Sepetys
Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, Plashy sleets and beating rain!
From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Robert Burns
I have called in the aid of sleets and snows, have besieged him in his white castle behind the glittering array of his icicles with threats of starvation.
From A Kentucky Cardinal by James Lane Allen
"No; it sleets now and then, and sometimes blows."
From The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II) by Charles James Lever
As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And winter oft, at eve, resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightful:---- Thomson.
From The Headsman The Abbaye des Vignerons by James Fenimore Cooper
Spring! with all your searching east winds, with your late, shriveling frosts, with your occasional untimely sleets and snows, you are yet as much better than summer as hope is better than fruition.
From Nancy by Rhoda Broughton
It sleeted all morning, but the sun came out for the march.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 21, 2017
“You’re being rained on and snowed on and sleeted on all day long. It makes for misery.”
From Washington Times ● Oct. 23, 2014
Sweated, froze, got sleeted on, rained on, snowed on, and never saw a deer.
From Time Magazine Archive
The suffering in front of Dolinsburg was something almost indescribable—it snowed, sleeted, hailed and froze during the whole of the night.
From Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson And Twenty Great Battles by John McElroy
The dividing line between snow and rain still was heavily marked, but it sleeted and our hands were quite numbed.
From The Luck of Thirteen Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia by Cora Gordon
It was one of those lousy late-fall New York evenings, cold and dark and sort of half raining and half sleeting.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2026
The temperature was little above freezing and it was sleeting, members of the team said at the time.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2023
Also, aside from anecdotal evidence of short-lived sleeting in the western suburbs, there was no ice, snow or other frozen precipitation.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 10, 2022
The new commute started in November, a gray, sleeting month that was all the more dreary because the job in Stamford that I had enjoyed for two years had been moved to New York.
From New York Times ● Jul. 18, 2021
And now it was sleeting, the snow already glistening with ice.
From "The Dead and the Gone" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Definitions 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.
