Sleeted

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Describing precipitation consisting of small pellets of ice or a mixture of rain and snow falling from the sky; characterized by wet, freezing, or slushy weather conditions; signifying a wintery form of moisture often making surfaces slippery
2. Referring to weather where frozen raindrops or partially melted snow descend; indicating a combination of icy rain and snow creating hazardous outdoor conditions; used to describe atmospheric phenomena involving cold, wet precipitation
3. Pertaining to conditions of freezing rain or icy particles mixed with snow falling to the ground; denoting a type of precipitation that is slippery and cold; describing a meteorological state involving wet frozen water particles from the atmosphere

Etymology: The past tense of "sleet" is "sleeted," and the verb descends from a noun whose origins are debated. Its Middle English form "slete" probably traces back to a reconstructed Old English "slēte" or "slȳte," which in turn comes from a Proto-Germanic root meaning the same wet, frozen precipitation. Some scholars point to a Scandinavian source, comparing Old Norse "slydda," the ancestor of Danish "slud," meaning a mixture of rain and snow, and the Norwegian "sletta" has also been cited as a likely loan. The word is also a doublet of "slut," which is a surprising connection. Both come from the same ancient root, yet over the centuries they went in very different directions, one becoming the name for falling ice and the other acquiring a far less pleasant meaning. The sharing of a root only becomes obvious when you trace the two back to their common origin.

Synonyms: hail, iced, snowed