Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Snowball |
SnowballNoun1. Plant having heads of fragrant white trumpet-shaped flowers; grows in sandy arid regions. 2. Ball of ice cream covered with coconut and usually chocolate sauce. 3. Ball of crushed ice with fruit syrup. 4. Snow pressed into a ball for throwing (playfully). Verb1. Increase or accumulate at a rapidly accelerating rate. 2. Throw snowballs at. 3. Increase at a rapidly accelerating rate. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "snowball" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1608. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Slang in 1811 | SNOWBALL. A jeering appellation for a negro. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Snowball was the Simpsons' pet cat, replaced by Snowball II after its death. Snowball was, according to Lisa in a poem, run over by a Chrysler. At a later point it was elaborated Snowball was run over by Clovis Quimby, drunkard brother of mayor Quimby (in a parody of what could be any of the Kennedy brothers or even Billy Carter). Snowball was so-named due to her white color. However, she has been drawn black. Snowball has been spotted in heaven by characters who have undergone near-death experiences.See: Characters
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Snowball."
Synonym: SnowballSynonym: sweet sand verbena (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Assemblage | Accumulation; (store); congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau, tissue, mass, pyramid; bing; drift; snowball, snowdrift; acervation, cumulation; glomeration, agglomeration; conglobation; conglomeration, conglomerate; coacervate, coacervation, coagmentation, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum, spicilegium, black hole of Calcutta; quantity; (greatness). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Snowball |
| English words defined with "snowball": Guelderrose' ♦ Snowballed, Snowballing. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "snowball": wet snow. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Snowball" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. German (snowball). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | We just rolled up a snowball and threw it into Hell. (Mission: Impossible II; writing credit: Bruce Geller; Ronald D. Moore) Behave yourselves, because Santa can still look into his magic snowball and see just what you're up to. And now that you know all about him, you can be darn sure that come snow or high water, Santa Claus is comin' to town! (Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town; writing credit: Romeo Muller) Look, my first snowball! I love snow so much, my fingers are numb with joy! (That '70s Show; writing credit: Stacia Raymond) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Snowball (1966) Snowball (1960) Summer Snowball Fight (1904) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | The snowball Battle near Dalton, Georgia. Credit: Library of Congress. | ![]() | Children having snowball fight, Chillicothe, Ohio. Credit: Library of Congress. |
![]() | Halloween and the Minnesota snowball. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
| Building; gain; increasing; snowball; rise; swell; surge; surging; increase; build up; intensify; redouble; . | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The snowball effect would kick in after 2000 if Poland begins to make more than 1 million cars annually. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Snowball" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 83.93% of the time. "Snowball" is used about 112 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 83.93% | 94 | 33,845 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 12.5% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Noun (proper) | 3.57% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Total | 100.00% | 112 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "snowball" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Snowball | Last name | 400 | 22,621 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "snowball": snowball bush ♦ snowball fight ♦ snowball sampling ♦ snowball tree. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "snowball": snowball-throwing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "snowball"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | top dëbore, mbledhje parash (gate, gate money). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كرة ثلجية, الويبرنوم عشب أبيض الزهر, إرتفع (advance, arise, ascend, aspire, climb, come in, flow, hike, lift, lift off, mount, soar, spring, tower, uplift). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | снежна топка, раста бързо, картоп, нещо което расте неимоверно, бия със снежни топки. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 雪球. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | snìhová koule (snow ball). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | sneboldsstikprøveudvælgelse (snowball sampling), sneboldknitren (snowball grating). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | sneeuwbal (guelder rose). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | viburno (guelder rose). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | گلوله برف بازی , گلوله برف , بسرعت زیادشدن , باگلوله برف زدن . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | lumipallo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | lancer des boules de neige, boule de neige. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Schneeball (guelder rose). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | χιονόσφαιρα, χιονόμπαλα. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ללכת ול'"ול, כ"ור של'. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | hógolyó. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | palla di neve. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 雪玉 , 雪礫 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ゆきつぶて, ゆき ま. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | ceau bluckan sniaghtee, bluckan sniaghtee. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | owballsnay rosa-de-gueldres (guelder rose), bola de neve (guelder rose). (various references) снежок. (various references) grudva snega. (various references) bola de nieve (fall of snow). (various references) snöboll, kasta snöboll. (various references) kartopuna tutmak, kartopu oynamak, kartopu çiçeği (guelder rose, viburnum), kartopu, gittikçe artmak, gitgide büyüyen şey, çığ gibi büyümek. (various references) сніжка, гратися в сніжки, закидати сніжками, ліпити сніжки. (various references) hòn tuyết. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "snowball": snowballed, snowballing, snowballs. (additional references) | |
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"Snowball" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Scobell. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "snowball" (pronounced snō"bô'l) |
| 3 | -b ô' l | basketball, blackball, butterball, cannonball, eyeball, fastball, fireball, football, handball, hardball, meatball, mothball, oddball, pinball, racquetball, screwball, softball, spitball, stickball, trackball, volleyball. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-l-l-n-o-s-w" | |
-1 letter: ballons. | |
-2 letters: allows, ballon, llanos, sallow. | |
-3 letters: allow, awols, balls, bawls, blawn, blaws, blown, blows, bolas, bolls, bowls, lawns, llano, loans, ollas, salol, salon, solan, walls. | |
-4 letters: abos, albs, alls, alow, also, awls, awns, awol, ball, bals, bans, bawl, blaw, blow, boas, bola, boll, bowl, bows, labs, lawn, laws, loan, lobs, lown, lows, nabs. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-l-l-n-o-s-w" | |
+1 letter: snowballs. | |
+2 letters: snowballed. | |
+3 letters: snowballing. | |
+4 letters: glassblowing. | |
+5 letters: glassblowings. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 6E 6F 77 62 61 6C 6C |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... -. --- .--. -... .- .-.. .-.. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01100010 01100001 01101100 01101100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S n o w b a l l |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 006E 006F 0077 0062 0061 006C 006C |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5380818968677878 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.