snowball

«snowball» in Mova's school dictionary: A ball of snow pressed together with the hands, often… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a snowball, snowballs); verb (snowball, snowballs, snowballed, snowballing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A ball of snow pressed together with the hands, often thrown in play. tree →

2) As a verb, to grow bigger and bigger, faster and faster, like a snowball rolled through snow. tree →

sense in the lessons

In winter play, children make snowballs and have snowball fights; safety rules say no stones or ice inside and do not aim at faces. In maths and science, "snowballing" describes something that grows quickly, like rumours or savings with interest. In stories, a small problem can snowball into a big one. Phrases: snowball fight, snowball effect, snowball into.

examples

• We had a snowball fight in the park. tree →
• Sam rolled a snowball to make a snowman. tree →
• Never put stones inside a snowball. tree →
• Don't throw snowballs at people's faces or at cars. tree →
• The rumour snowballed until the whole school had heard it. tree →
• One small lie can snowball into a big problem. tree →
• The snowball melted on the warm windowsill. tree →

note

Countable: a snowball, snowballs; verb past "snowballed". The "snowball effect" means a small thing growing bigger and faster. Safety: throw only soft snow, never icy snowballs, and stop when someone says stop. "Snowball" is written as one word.

In the corpora

• A story passed from person to person is like a snowball rolling downhill: it picks up bits on the way.
• On ice you walk carefully, and you never throw snowballs at faces or with ice in them, because they can injure eyes.
• An excuse grows like a snowball.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «snowball» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.