US /ˈheɪlˌstoʊn/ UK /ˈheɪl.stəʊn/
noun Freq #131664

Meanings

  1. 1
    noun

    a single ball or irregular lump of ice that falls from a storm cloud as hail

    A hailstone struck the greenhouse roof and cracked one of its panes.

Thesaurus

Synonyms
1 noun · a single ball or irregular... hail pellet
Word family
Forms hailstones
Related forms hailhailstormsleet

Etymology

From Middle English hailston and Old English hagolstan, a compound of the ancestors of hail and stone. The name compares each hard pellet of frozen precipitation to a small stone.

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