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snowball

snow·ball

Today it means: A ball of snow, usually one made in the hand and thrown for amusement in a snowball fight; also a larger ball of snow made by rolling a snowball around in snow that sticks to it and increases its diameter. Full definition →

Middle English snoweball

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snowball · noun, adjective, verb¹

Middle English · derived fromsnoweball
English todaysnowball

From Middle English snoweball, snoweballe, snaweballe, snayballe, equivalent to snow + ball. Cognate with Scots snawbaw, German Schneeball, Luxembourgish Schnéiball, Dutch sneeuwbal, Afrikaans sneeubal, Limburgish snieëbal, West Frisian sniebal, Saterland Frisian Sneebaal, Sneebal, Swedish snöboll, Elfdalian sniųoboll, Danish snebold, Norwegian Bokmål snøball, Norwegian Nynorsk snøball and Icelandic snjóbolti.

Snowball · proper noun²

From snow + ball, probably a nickname for someone who had a patch of white hair or a pale bald patch, amid dark hair.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.