noun / verb
sleet
SLEET/sliːt/
Ice pellets or partly frozen rain falling from the sky.
Tiny pellets of sleet bounce from the wet pavement and collect along its edge.
Etymology
Middle English slete already named precipitation mixing snow and rain. The modern ice-pellet sense preserves this association with partly frozen precipitation, while the word's deeper origin remains uncertain.
In context
The rain became sleet, and it turned to snow.
More examples
- It often sleets here in early March.
- The roads are slippery after a night of sleet.
- It sleeted all afternoon, so we stayed home.
Forms
sleet · sleets · sleeted · sleeting
sleety adjective — Marked by or mixed with sleet.
Similar words
- hail
- Falls as balls or lumps of ice, usually during thunderstorms.
- freezing rain
- Falls as liquid and freezes on contact with surfaces.