snowball

plural snowballs

1. 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.
2. A cocktail made from lemonade and advocaat.
3. figurativelySomething that snowballs (grows rapidly out of control).

   Representatives of the small airlines that felt betrayed by Brown's policy started a political snowball rolling, resulting in the Airmail Act of 1934...

   2005, Eldad Ben-Yosef, The Evolution of the US Airline Industry

4. lifestyleA sex act involving passing ejaculated semen from one person's mouth to another's.
5. USA type of ice dessert: a snow cone.
6. A small cake, typically cream-filled and covered in chocolate icing and desiccated coconut.

   It didn't take long to eat a packetful of snowballs — they are simply delicious.

1. not comparableOf something with rapid growth, often uncontrolled. Compare snowball effect.

   Scandal, with her, did not lose any of its usual snowball propensities, of gathering as it went.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Another London Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 175

present singular third person snowballs · participle present snowballing · participle past snowballed · past snowballed

1. figurativelyintransitiveTo rapidly grow out of proportion or control, from an initially smaller state.

   The high unemployment rates quickly snowballed into a major budget problem for the government.

   1 more example

   There's a further knock-on effect from cancelling trains. It's not unusual for train crew diagrams to include a period 'on the cushions', travelling as a passenger to get staff from one train to the next. Cancel this train and it's likely the crew won't reach their next train, so this too is cancelled. Disruption snowballs and diagrams become harder to deliver.

   2023 January 11, Philip Haigh, “Comment: The worst chaos for 40 years”, in RAIL, number 974, page 4

2. intransitiveTo play at throwing snowballs.
3. transitiveTo pelt with snowballs; to throw snowballs at.
4. intransitiveslangvulgarlifestyleTo receive ejaculated semen in one's mouth, and to then pass it back and forth between one’s mouth and another person’s mouth.

plural Snowballs

1. A surname transferred from the nickname.
2. A locality in the Queanbeyan-Palerang council area, south eastern New South Wales, Australia.