hail
/heɪl/ noun, verb, adjective, interjection, proper noun
Forms hails hailing hailed hailer hailest
- noun (meteorology, uncountable) Balls or pieces of ice falling as precipitation, often in connection with a thunderstorm.
- noun (meteorology, countable) An occurrence of this type of precipitation; a hailstorm.
- noun (countable, by extension) A rapid, intense barrage by a large number of projectiles or other objects.
- verb (impersonal) To have hailstones fall from the sky. “They say it's going to hail tomorrow.”
- verb (intransitive) To send or release hail. “The cloud would hail down furiously within a few minutes.”
- verb To pour down in rapid succession.
- adjective (obsolete) Healthy, whole, safe.
- verb (transitive) To greet; give salutation to; salute.
- verb (transitive) To name; to designate; to call. “He was hailed as a hero.”
- verb (transitive) To call out loudly in order to gain the attention of. “Hail a taxi.”
- verb (transitive, by extension, UK, Australia) To indicate, from a designated stop or otherwise, to the driver of a public transport vehicle that one wishes to board and travel on the vehicle, usually using hand signals such as waving. “In Melbourne, you would usually have to hail a tram when you are travelling late at night and there are no other passengers waiting at your stop.”
- verb (transitive) To signal in order to initiate communication with.
- verb (transitive) In the game of uppies and downies, to throw (the ball) repeatedly up and down at the goal location, in order to score a point.
- verb (from) to originate (from), be native (to) or be based (in)
- interjection (archaic or poetic) An exclamation of respectful or reverent salutation, or, occasionally, of familiar greeting.
- proper noun A province of Saudi Arabia
- proper noun A city in Hail, Saudi Arabia
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English hayl, haul, from Old English hæġl, hæġel, hagol (“hail”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagl, from Proto-Germanic *haglaz, of uncertain origin. Either from Proto-Indo-European *kagʰlos (“pebble”); or alternatively from *ḱoḱló-, a reduplication of *ḱel- (“cold”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hail (“hail”), West Frisian heil (“hail”), Low German Hagel (“hail”), German Hagel (“hail”), Dutch and Swedish hagel (“hail”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Icelandic hagl (“hail”). Compare also Old Norse héla (“frost”). Doublet of haglaz, if the second etymology (“cold”) is correct.
Root-cognates outside of Germanic include Ancient Greek κάχληξ (kákhlēx, “pebble”), or alternatively Sanskrit शिशिर (śíśira, “cool, cold”), possibly also Lithuanian šešėlis (“shade, shadow”), depending on the etymology.
From Middle English haylen, haulien, hawelien, from Old English hagolian, hagalian (“to hail”), from Proto-West Germanic *haglōn, from Proto-Germanic *haglōną (“to hail”), from the noun (see above). Cognate with Saterland Frisian hailje (“to hail”), West Frisian heilje (“to hail”), Dutch hagelen (“to hail”), German Low German hageln (“to hail”), German hageln (“to hail”), Danish hagle (“to hail”), Swedish hagla (“to hail”), Norwegian Nynorsk hagle, hagla (“to hail”), Faroese hegla (“to hail”), Icelandic hagla (“to hail”).
From Middle English heyl (“healthy, sound”), from Old Norse heill, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, entire, healthy”). The verb is from Middle English heilen, itself from the adjective. Doublet of whole, hale, and heil.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Small roundish masses of ice precipitated from the clouds, where they are formed by the congelation of vapor. The separate masses or grains are called hailstones.
- verb To pour down particles of ice, or frozen vapors.
- verb To pour forcibly down, as hail. Shak.
- adjective Healthy. See Hale (the preferable spelling).
Etymology [OE. hailen, AS. haqalian.]
Etymology [OE. hailen, heilen, Icel. heil hale, sound, used in greeting. See Hale sound.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hail”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details