What it means
Yorkshire for pouring with rain, the heavy, relentless kind that soaks through everything in seconds. If it is siling it down, you are not going anywhere without looking like you fell in a canal. Related to the word sile which means to strain or pour. Yorkshire has about forty words for rain and this is one of the best because it sounds exactly like what it describes.
Usage examples
"It were siling it down all morning and the dog still wanted his walk. Came back looking like a drowned rat, both of us, hallway carpet is done for."
"Take a brolly, it's siling down out there."
"We got soaked at the match, it was siling the whole time."
Where it comes from
Yorkshire dialect from sile, to pour or strain liquid, itself from the Old Norse word for sieving. When it is siling down, the rain falls as if poured straight through a strainer.
Editors of this term
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