different between drizzle vs sleet

English

Etymology

Perhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from Old English drysnan (“to extinguish”), related to Old English dr?osan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d??z.l/
• Rhymes: -?z?l
• Hyphenation: driz?zle

Verb

drizzle (third-person singular simple present drizzles, present participle drizzling, simple past and past participle drizzled)

1. (impersonal) To rain lightly.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To shed slowly in minute drops or particles.
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London, Januarye, Aegloga prima,^[1]

     And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend,

     As on your boughes the ysicles depend.

   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 5,^[2]

     When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;

     But for the sunset of my brother’s son

     It rains downright.

3. (cooking, transitive) To pour slowly and evenly, especially oil or honey in cooking.

4. (cooking, transitive) To cover by pouring in this manner.

5. (slang) To urinate. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
6. (dated) To carry out parfilage, the process of unravelling.

Translations

Noun

drizzle (countable and uncountable, plural drizzles)

1. Light rain.
2. (physics, weather) Very small, numerous, and uniformly dispersed water drops, mist, or sprinkle. Unlike fog droplets, drizzle falls to the ground.

3. (slang) Water.

4. (baking) A cake onto which icing, honey or syrup has been drizzled in an artistic manner.
   • April 19, 2013,Felicity Cloake, "How to Cook the Perfect Lemon Drizzle Cake" in The Guardian

     Drizzle is not normally good news. Not when it's falling from the sky, not when it's replacing a decent helping of sauce, and especially not when it's found on a menu in close proximity to the words "balsamic vinegar". Deliciously sticky, sweet and sour lemon drizzle cake is the one, and very honourable, exception.

Derived terms

• drizzly
• drizzler

Translations

Anagrams

• rizzled

English

Etymology

From Middle English slete, probably from Old English *sl?te, *sl?te, *sl?ete, ultimately derived from or related to Proto-Germanic *slautô (“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”)). The word appears to be akin to Low German Sloot (“hail”), dialectal German Schloße (“large hailstone”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sli?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Noun

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 Britain, Ireland, New England) A mixture of rain and snow.

   Synonym: slush

3. (rare) A smooth coating of ice formed on ground or other objects by freezing rain.

   Synonyms: black ice, glaze

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

Translations

References

• Sleet in Encyclopedia Britannica

See also

• freezing rain
• graupel

Verb

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.

Translations

References

Further reading

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

Anagrams

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

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sle?t/
• Rhymes: -e?t

Noun

sleet c (uncountable)

1. (chiefly Belgium) wear

Synonyms

• slijtage

Verb

sleet

1. singular past indicative of slijten
2. second- and third-person singular present indicative of sleeën
3. (archaic) plural imperative of sleeën

Anagrams

• leest, slete, steel, stele