Rainfall
nounThe amount of rain that falls in a particular area over a set period of time.
How to spell rainfall
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce rainfall
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does rainfall mean?
- nounThe amount of rain that falls in a particular area over a set period of time.
Rainfall in a sentence
-
The region recorded its highest rainfall in a decade this autumn.
-
Farmers rely on steady rainfall to keep the reservoirs full.
Where does rainfall come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a transparent English compound, joining two of the oldest words in the language. 'Rain' descends from the Old English 'regn', a noun shared across the Germanic family for water falling from the sky, while 'fall' comes from the Old English verb 'feallan', meaning to drop or descend. The combined form 'rainfall' is comparatively young, emerging only in the nineteenth century as scientific and meteorological writers needed a single term for the measured amount of rain that descends over a given period. Because both halves are everyday Germanic words spelled exactly as they sound, the compound carries no hidden traps beyond remembering it is written as one solid word. The doubled 'l' simply reflects the standard spelling of 'fall', which keeps both letters.
How the word is built
- rain (water from clouds)
- fall (descent, from Old English feallan)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.