graupel
Plural: graupels
Noun
- Soft, opaque pellets of ice, also known as snow pellets.
- A precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water condense on a snowflake.
- A small ball of rime resulting from this process.
Examples
- The new tiles fell like graupel, obscuring his perfect word strategy.
Origin / Etymology
Borrowed from German Graupel(wetter) (literally “graupel (weather)”). Graupel is a back-formation from graupeln (“to hail (with soft hailstones)”) + -el (diminutive suffix); and graupeln is from Graupe (“hulled grain, pearl barley”) (ultimately from Proto-Slavic *krūpà (“grainy substance; groats; hail”) and Proto-Indo-European *krewp-) + -eln (suffix forming verbs, often with a diminutive or frequentative sense).
Synonyms
granular snow, hominy snow, popcorn snow, snow pellet, soft hail
Scrabble Score: 10
graupel: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordgraupel: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
graupel: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary