Other forms: hailstones
A hailstone is one single ball of falling ice. Hailstones the size of peas, a giant hailstone, hailstones on the roof.
It grows in layers as it is carried up and down inside a storm, which is why one cut in half shows rings like an onion. The largest recorded weighed nearly a kilogram.
1nounhailstoneOne single ball of falling ice.
“Hailstones the size of marbles bounced off the roof of the car.”
hailstone is a ball.
Old English hagolstan is hail plus stone.
Proto-Germanic
*haglastainaz
Proto-West Germanic
*haglastain
Old English
hagolstān — hailstone
Middle English
hailston
English, today
hailstone
From Middle English hailston, haylestone, hawelston, hawleston, from Old English hagolstān (“hailstone”), from Proto-West Germanic haglastain, from Proto-Germanic haglastainaz, equivalent to hail + stone. Cognate with West Frisian heilstien (“hailstone”), stq Hailsteen (“hailstone”), Dutch hagelsteen (“hailstone”), German Low German Hagelsteen (“hailstone”), German Hagelstein (“hailstone”), Swedish hagelsten (“hailstone”), Icelandic haglsteinn (“hailstone”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA