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

Hills across central and the north-west of Scotland could also see sleet and snow during the weekend.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2026

In some sections, workers struggle to repair sections of netting torn by sleet and ice.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026

A massive winter storm continues to hit large parts of the country, dumping snow, sleet and freezing rain and leaving hundreds of thousands without power in the South.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 31, 2026

“In addition, widespread freezing rain and sleet are expected across the Southern Plains, the Lower Mississippi Valley, the Tennessee Valley, and the Southeast.”

From Barron's • Jan. 23, 2026

His back was covered with a layer of frozen sleet.

From "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls

Related Words

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