From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsnowballsnow‧ball1 /ˈsnəʊbɔːl $ ˈsnoʊbɒːl/ noun [countable] 1 DGOa ball of snow that children make and throw at each other We had a massive snowball fight.2 → snowball effect3 → not have a snowball’s chance in hell
Examples from the Corpus
snowball• The kids were having a snowball fight outside.• He was born in Enniskillen and shortly after he joined Portora Royal School lost an eye in a snowball fight.• Another makes a pet of a snowball, which wets the bed then runs away.• From a distance, Europa had seemed like a giant snowball, reflecting the light of the far-off Sun with remarkable efficiency.• At once there is a parabolic storm of snowballs.• This difference is accounted for by the younger average age of the snowball sample.• Saw him today on the plateau throwing snowballs at the skuas and shouting at aeroplanes.• I liked playing dodgeball, tossing snowballs, being a roughneck.snowballsnowball2 verb [intransitive] INCREASE IN NUMBER OR AMOUNTif a plan, problem, business etc snowballs, it grows bigger at a faster and faster rate Interest in the sport is snowballing.→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
snowball• Things hadn't exactly been going our way, but after the first defeat, everything sort of snowballed.• The campaign was snowballing and life was getting increasingly hectic.• The smallest deviation might snowball and produce a wobbly vertical ridge when the whole wall was complete.• Start with the stalwarts of the organisation and let the message fan out from there, snowballing as it goes along.• Unemployment snowballed at the beginning of the 1980s.• Gradually, one large, snowballing finale will dominate the dance-off.• By Tuesday, the rumors had snowballed into a huge loss on the stock market.• At this time the brutality of the vicious Communist thugs was snowballing into cold-blooded savagery.• Late wages and underemployment have snowballed not only across factories but also throughout public and private workplaces.• It's like something you fasten on to in times of confusion and it snowballs out of hand.SnowballSnowball a main character in Animal Farm, a satire on the Soviet Union by George Orwell. Snowball is a pig who helps the animals to drive out the cruel farmer who owns them. But he is then chased away by another pig, Napoleon. Snowball represents Leon Trotsky, who was forced to leave the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin.From Longman Business Dictionarysnowballsnow‧ball /ˈsnəʊbɔːlˈsnoʊbɒːl/ verb [intransitive] to grow or increase at a faster and faster rateOur sales in Europe have snowballed.snowball into‘Primary Colors’ snowballed into one of the biggest-selling books of the year. —snowballing adjective [only before a noun]a scheme to cover his snowballing losses→ See Verb table 