Snowballing

noun, verb

noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act or practice of making and throwing snowballs. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A situation which rapidly gets out of control. countable, figuratively, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of snowball form-of, gerund, participle, present

    ""Operating the WCML at this intensity makes it challenging to maintain acceptable performance levels, resulting in a frustratingly unreliable service for passengers. Minor disruption can escalate into significant delays because a train running only a few minutes late can miss its slot across a junction, resulting in a snowballing effect across the network.""

Example

More examples

""Operating the WCML at this intensity makes it challenging to maintain acceptable performance levels, resulting in a frustratingly unreliable service for passengers. Minor disruption can escalate into significant delays because a train running only a few minutes late can miss its slot across a junction, resulting in a snowballing effect across the network.""

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.