A pellet of hail; a ball of ice that falls from clouds during a hailstorm.
Compound word: hail (frozen precipitation from Old Norse) + stone (from Old English stan). English speakers combined these words to describe the literal ice stones that fall as hail.
Hailstones can grow to the size of softballs during severe storms—they form by circulating repeatedly through layers of freezing cloud, each trip adding another icy shell like tree rings.
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