100 British Words for Rain

In the UK, we talk incessantly about the weather. In a recent study, 94% of British people admitted to having talked about the weather in the past six hours, and 38% in the last hour.

There are a few reasons for this obsession;

The first is that we have a LOT of weather. In my hometown of Alston in northern England, it rains or snows 244 days a year. That means more than 2 out of 3 days are rainy or snowy!

Another reason is a bit less obvious. British people are famously inhibited. We have trouble starting conversations. But with a simple sentence like “Lovely weather for ducks, eh?”, we immediately start a conversation that everyone can get involved in, and agree with. Weather is our perfect icebreaker, and our doorway into deeper conversation.

So it might not surprise you just how much language we have for talking about rain.
Here are 100 words and phrases used in the various dialects of British English:

I’ve used these emojis to show what type of rain it is:

Light Rain:   Heavy Rain:   With Wind:   With lightning:

With ice:   Brief Rain:   Sudden Rain:

So here you go, 100 words for rain!

1. Ache and pain (Cockney rhyming slang)
2. Bange (East Anglia), a sort of dampness in the air, w/ light rain
3. Bleeter (Scottish)  
4. Bluffart (Scottish)
5. Blunk (Shropshire)  
6. Cloudburst
7. Cow quaker
8. Dag of rain (Scottish)  
9. Deluge
10. Dibble (Shropshire) Slow rain
11. Dimpsey (West country)
12. Downpour
13. Dreich (miserable weather, Scottish)
14. Drencher
15. Dringey (Norflk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire)
16. Drisk (Cornwall)
17. Driving rain
18. Drizzle
19. Duke of Spain (Cockney rhyming slang)
20. Flist (Scottish)
21. Flurry
22. Fox’s wedding (The West Country)
23. Haar (Cornish, Scotlish, N. English), drizzle from the sea
24. Harle (Lincolnshire), drizzle from the sea
25. Haster (England), a violent storm
26. Haud (Scottish)
27. Hemple (West Country)
28. Hig (England)
29. Hurley Burley (England)
30. It’s beating down
31. It’s chucking it down
32. It’s coming down in buckets/bucketloads
33. It’s coming down in sheets
34. It’s coming down it torrents
35. It’s drumming down, heavy rain heard through a roof
36. It’s getting biblical out there
37. It’s hammering (it) down
38. It’s henting (Cornwall)
39. It’s hossin (Cumbrian)
40. It’s hoyin it doon (N. E. England)
41. It’s lashing (it) down
42. It’s lattin (Shropeshire), Enough rain to make outdoor work difficult
43. It’s letty (Somerset), Enough rain to make outdoor work difficult
44. It’s luttering down
45. It’s maumy (N. English/Scottish)
46. It’s pattering
47. It’s peeing (it) down
48. It’s pelting (it) down
49. It’s pissing (it) down
50. It’s plothering down (Midlands and N. England) large droplets with no wind
51. It’s pouring/pouring down
52. It’s raining cats and dogs
53. It’s raining chair legs, painfully heavy rain
54. It’s raining like a cow reliving itself
55. It’s raining sideways
56. It’s raining stair rods, painfully heavy rain
57. It’s raining upwards, rain so heavy that it bounces
58. It’s siling/syling down (N. England)
59. It’s spitting
60. It’s spluttering
61. It’s sprinkling
62. It’s stottin (N. England and Scottland) heavy rain that bounces
63. It’s teeming from the heavens (N. Irish)
64. It’s thrashing (it) down
65. It’s throwing it down
66. It’s tipping (it) down
67. It’s tippling (it) down
68. It’s yukken it doon (Cumbrian)
69. It’s trickling
70. Kelsher, a heavy shower  
71. Liquid sunshine, sudden rain on a sunny day
72. Misla (Irish Traveller)
73. Mizzle (N.Engis), misty drizzle
74. Mochy weather (Scotish, N. Irish)
75. Monsoon, heavy summer rain  
76. Mothery (Linconshire)
77. Nice weather for ducks!
78. Onslaught  
79. Peeggirin (Scottish) a stormy shower  
80. Plash (Northumbrian)
81. Pleasure and pain (Cockney rhyming slang)
82. Plum shower (Scottish)
83. Posh (Shropshire)
84. Precipitation
85. Rain
86. Raining forks’tiyunsdown’ards (Lincolnshire) like it’s raining pitchforks
87. Scotch mist
88. Sea fret (N. English) mizzle from the sea
89. Shower
90. Skew (Cornwall)
91. Skite (Scottish)
92. Sleet
93. Smirr (Scottish)
94. Smizzle (Scottish)
95. Soaker
96. Soft weather (N. Irish)
97. Squall 
98. Steaking
99. The heavens have opened
100. The smoky smirr o rain (Scotland) 
101. The Wet
102. Thunderstorm
103. Torrent/Torrential
104. Yillen (Scottish)

Ok admittedly I got a bit carried away and went over the 100 mark, but there we go, 104 words for rain used in the UK!

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