sleet

 

From Middle English slete, probably from Old English *slēte, *slȳte, *slīete, from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (“sleet”). Walter W. Skeat, the author of Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, suggests Old Norse slydda (whence Danish slud (“mixture of rain and snow”)).^[1] The word appears to be akin to Low German Sloot (“hail”), dialectal German Schloße (“large hailstone”), Old Gutnish sloyta (“slush, sleet”). Doublet of slut.

• IPA^(key): /sliːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

sleet (countable and uncountable, plural sleets)

1. (chiefly US) Pellets of ice made of mostly-frozen raindrops or refrozen melted snowflakes.

   Synonym: ice pellets

2. (chiefly UK, Ireland, Northeastern US) Precipitation in the form of a mixture of rain and snow.
3. (rare) A smooth coating of ice formed on ground or other objects by freezing rain.

   Synonyms: black ice, glaze

4. (firearms) The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.

• freezing rain
• graupel

• Sleet in Encyclopedia Britannica

sleet (third-person singular simple present sleets, present participle sleeting, simple past and past participle sleeted)

1. (impersonal, of the weather) To be in a state in which sleet is falling.

   I won't bother going out until it's stopped sleeting.

   • 2021 February 24, Greg Morse, “Great Heck: a tragic chain of events”, in RAIL, number 925, page 38:

     It was dark, it was cold, it was sleeting - dreadful conditions for driving... perfect conditions for an accident.

•   sleet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
•   Sleet in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• AMS Glossary of Meteorology

• Teles, steel, Leets, stélé, Teels, Elets, leets, Steel, stele, stelè, teles

• IPA^(key): /sleːt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eːt

sleet c (uncountable)

1. (chiefly Belgium) wear

• slijtage

sleet

1. singular past indicative of slijten
2. inflection of sleeën:
   1. second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. (archaic) plural imperative

• leest, slete, steel, stele

sleet

1. Alternative form of slete