hail
/heɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.92 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Balls or pieces of ice falling as precipitation, often in connection with a thunderstorm.
Uncountable
verb
To have hailstones fall from the sky.
verb
To pour down in rapid succession.
Example Sentences
- "Their lack of good intelligence also meant that they vastly overestimated the size of their foes for far too long, hails of armor-piercing shells doing comparatively little damage compared to the high explosive that they should have been using."
- "They say it's going to hail tomorrow."
- "The cloud would hail down furiously within a few minutes."
- "[…] Farewel happy Fields / Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail / Infernal world, and thou profoundeſt Hell / Receive they new Poſſeſſor: […]"
- "Such a Son as all men hail'd me happy;"
- "He was hailed as a hero."
Etymology
From Middle English hayl, haul, from Old English hæġl, hæġel, hagol (“hail”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagl, from Proto-Germanic *haglaz, of uncertain origin. Either from Proto-Indo-European *kagʰlos (“pebble”); or alternatively from *ḱoḱló-, a reduplication of *ḱel- (“cold”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hail (“hail”), West Frisian heil (“hail”), Low German Hagel (“hail”), German Hagel (“hail”), Dutch and Swedish hagel (“hail”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Icelandic hagl (“hail”). Compare also Old Norse héla (“frost”). Doublet of haglaz, if the second etymology (“cold”) is correct. Root-cognates outside of Germanic include Ancient Greek κάχληξ (kákhlēx, “pebble”), or alternatively Sanskrit शिशिर (śíśira, “cool, cold”), possibly also Lithuanian šešėlis (“shade, shadow”), depending on the etymology.