Definition of graupel
: granular snow pellets —called also soft hail
From the M-W Editors
graupel was our Word of the Day on 01/17/2012. Hear the podcast!
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Did You Know?
The word graupel is Germanic in origin; it is the diminutive of Graupe, meaning "pearl barley." According to etymologists, there does seem to be a grain of truth in the assumption that the word grew from the Slavic word krupa, which has the same meaning. Graupel was first seen in an 1889 weather report and has been whirling around in the meteorology field ever since to describe "pellets of snow" or "soft hail" (the latter phrase is an actual synonym of graupel).
Origin and Etymology of graupel
German
First Known Use: 1889
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