snowball effect
"snowball-effect" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“snowball effect” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An accelerating growth of magnitude, including fame, fortune, importance, or danger.
Corpus desk
Index EN-snowball-effect · snowball effect · English
snowball effect · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | snowball effect |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “snowball effect” in English
Rare enough to double-check
snowball effect is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An accelerating growth of magnitude, including fame, fortune, importance, or danger.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for snowball effect, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: By analogy with the way that a growing snowball collects snow faster and faster as it is rolled along. The correct English form is snowball effect, spelled S-N-O-W-B-A-L-L- -E-F-F-E-C-T.
Definition
- 1An accelerating growth of magnitude, including fame, fortune, importance, or danger.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how snowball effect appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The success of these women has had the snowball effect of bringing more and more women into the sport over the past few years.
Etymology
By analogy with the way that a growing snowball collects snow faster and faster as it is rolled along.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.