Jose Carillo's English Forum

English Grammar and Usage Problems => Use and Misuse => Topic started by: fimbriae on September 14, 2009, 03:47:41 PM

Title: snowballing.
Post by: fimbriae on September 14, 2009, 03:47:41 PM

Could anyone in this language forum, please, let me know the infallible usage for the lexicon "snowballing?"

Title: Re: snowballing.
Post by: Joe Carillo on September 14, 2009, 04:18:53 PM

Welcome to the Forum, fimbriae!

I'm not absolutely sure of the infallibility of the usage being cited, but my online Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary lists the verb "snowball" as follows:

snowball
Function: verb
Date:1843

intransitive verb 
1 : to engage in throwing snowballs
2 : to increase, accumulate, expand, or multiply at a rapidly accelerating rate

transitive verb 
1 : to throw snowballs at
2 : to cause to increase or multiply at a rapidly accelerating rate

I would suppose that the usage you mean for it is that of intransitive-2 or transitive-2.