Hailshower

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A short, sudden downpour of hailstones falling from a cloud during a storm
2. A brief burst of pellets of ice that drop from the sky, usually lasting only a few minutes
3. A passing spell of hail, arriving abruptly and ending quickly, often during thunderstorms

Etymology: "Hailshower" is a plain compound: "hail" for the frozen pellets and "shower" for a brief, sharp downpour. "Hail" comes from Old English "hægl," which has cognates across Germanic languages, such as German "Hagel." The older English sense of "shower" was a spell of rain or sleet from a passing storm, and its own Old English ancestor, "scūr," is linked to German "Schauer," which still means a shower of rain. The bath sense of "shower" developed much later from that same idea of water falling in a burst. In "hailshower," the two parts combine to describe a short, sudden fall of hailstones, with no change in meaning from either part.