snowball

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsnəʊbɔːl/
• (General American) enPR: snōʹbôl, IPA^(key): /ˈsnoʊbɔl/
• (cot–caught merger) enPR: snōʹbôl, IPA^(key): /ˈsnoʊbɑl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: snow‧ball

Noun

snowball (plural snowballs)

2. 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.
3. A cocktail made from lemonade and advocaat.
4. (figuratively) Something that snowballs (grows rapidly out of control).
   • 2005, Eldad Ben-Yosef, The Evolution of the US Airline Industry:

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

5. (sex) A sex act involving passing ejaculated semen from one person's mouth to another's.
6. (US) A type of ice dessert.
7. 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.

Adjective

snowball (not comparable)

1. Of something with rapid growth, often uncontrolled. Compare snowball effect.
   • 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:

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

Verb

snowball (third-person singular simple present snowballs, present participle snowballing, simple past and past participle snowballed)

1. (intransitive) To 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.

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

     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.

2. (intransitive) To play at throwing snowballs.
3. (transitive) To pelt with snowballs; to throw snowballs at.
4. (intransitive, slang) To receive ejaculated semen in one's mouth, and to then pass it back and forth between one’s mouth and another person’s mouth.