A type of cold precipitation made of small ice pellets or a mix of rain and snow. It often makes the ground slippery and wet.
“Sleet” comes from Old English “slēet,” meaning “hail” or “snow mixed with rain.” It is related to old Germanic words for wet or slippery precipitation. The exact root is unclear, but the form has changed very little over time.
Sleet is weather that can’t make up its mind—half rain, half snow, all annoyance. The word is old, but the science is modern: it forms when snowflakes melt on the way down and then refreeze into ice pellets. That messy in‑between nature is built right into how we complain about it.
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