A ball made from packed snow; something that grows bigger or more serious as it develops.
Compound word from 'snow' (Old English 'snaw') plus 'ball' (Old English 'beall'). Used metaphorically since the 1800s to mean something growing in size and momentum.
The phrase 'snowball effect' captures something real about momentum—like how a small joke can snowball into a huge argument, or a small financial problem spirals into bankruptcy—and it's a perfect metaphor because snowballs literally grow by accumulating more and more as they roll.
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