Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Precipitation consisting of small ice pellets formed by the freezing of raindrops or of melted snowflakes.
  • noun A mixture of rain and snow or hail.
  • noun A thin icy coating that forms when rain or sleet freezes, as on trees or streets.
  • intransitive verb To shower sleet.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To rain and snow or hail at the same time.
  • noun In gunnery, that part of a mortar which passes from the chamber to the trunnions for strengthening the chamber.
  • noun Hail or snow mingled with rain, usually in fine particles, and frequently driven by the wind.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gun.) The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
  • noun Hail or snow, mingled with rain, usually falling, or driven by the wind, in fine particles.
  • intransitive verb To snow or hail with a mixture of rain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun chiefly UK A mixture of rain and snow.
  • noun Rain which freezes before reaching the ground.
  • verb impersonal, of the weather To be in a state in which sleet is falling.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb precipitate as a mixture of rain and snow
  • noun partially melted snow (or a mixture of rain and snow)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English slete, probably from Old English *slēte; akin to German Schlosse, hail.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

According to Skeat, the author of Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, it is from Old Norse origin - slydda (whence Danish slud); akin to Middle High German sloz (German Schloße).

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