as in increased
to become greater in extent, volume, amount, or number
the little problems we ignored began to snowball into huge headaches
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Recent Examples of snowballed
The loss to Tennessee last season snowballed into five straight during Coach John Calipari's first season in Fayetteville.
—
Matt Byrne, Arkansas Online, 2 Jan. 2026
But the system led to a bad start for the sophomore guard making his first career start, and everything snowballed from there.
—Cameron Teague Robinson, New York Times, 1 Jan. 2026
Such a streak in years past might have snowballed.
—Curtis Pashelka, Mercury News, 30 Dec. 2025
The Minnesota fraud cases have snowballed, and Thompson said more charges are expected.
—Hannah Fingerhut, Twin Cities, 19 Dec. 2025
The passion project snowballed, leading to more products including prototype shorts and t-shirts by mid 2024.
—Andy Wacker, Outside, 14 Dec. 2025
The latest look into the film, which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, finds the artist grappling with how her latest album snowballed so quickly into a vessel for commercialized and overexposed marketing.
—Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 11 Dec. 2025
The fine stemmed from a winter storm in December 2022 that paralyzed Southwest’s operations in Denver and Chicago and then snowballed when a crew-rescheduling system couldn’t keep up with the chaos.
—Dee-Ann Durbin, Fortune, 7 Dec. 2025
But Biden still struggled to curtail Israeli operations that could have snowballed into regional conflict.
—Andrew P. Miller, Foreign Affairs, 5 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for snowballed
Verb
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The Wolverines increased their lead to 42 with less than a minute left in the fourth.—
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And while famine has not yet emerged, food insecurity has increased, with most Cubans eating a limited diet and skipping meals.—
Verb
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Waves along the Bay Area coast swelled higher than normal, and king tides continued to push coastal waters higher onto the shore than normal Thursday.—
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Sherrill will inherit a state budget that swelled under Murphy, who delivered on promises to fund the public worker pension fund and a K-12 school aid formula after years of neglect under previous governors, by high income taxes on the wealthy.—
Verb
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Rizzi even rose to associate head coach for two years prior to leaving the Dolphins after the 2018 season.—
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Additionally, the December survey showed that respondents’ expectations of losing their job rose to the highest mean probability since April 2025, while the probability of those voluntarily quitting dropped to the lowest rate since July 2023.—
Verb
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This trend accelerated in December as the flag state emerged as a critical shield against drone strikes and vessel seizures.—
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America’s top campuses remain crowded with wealth, but some universities have accelerated efforts to reach a wider swath of the country, recruiting more in urban and rural areas and offering free tuition for students whose families are not among the highest earners.—
Verb
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The Pacers expanded their lead to as large as 25 points in the second quarter before the Heat finally started to push back.—
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In 2025, the Navy expanded its training programs for future E-6B pilots, with courses now held in Oklahoma, where the majority of the aircraft are based and operated.—
Cite this Entry
“Snowballed.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/snowballed. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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