What's the difference between sleet and freezing rain?

Sleet is/are little itty bitty chunks of ice that fall from the sky, thats what you hear if you hear little clings outside your window right now (like I am hearing.)

Freezing rain is rain! The problem is it hits the ground then immediatly freezes upon contact creating ice.

Sleet may form into a sheet of ice over time as te little pellets congeel into one big icy mess, but tend to have more texture then the sheer sleet ice that is like a piece of glass.

Not if you hail (something different entirely) from a region where these are dominant forms of frozen precipitation and tire chains are required beyond your driveway.

Sleet is rain that froze on it's way through cold air. It stings, it makes wierd noises, it is annoying, it can build up a little like very coarse snow pellets, but it typically doesn't amount to much.

Freezing Rain (aka ZR or Silver Thaw or various unprintable and less poetic terms)is rain until it hits something that is already frozen - ground, trees, powerlines - at which time it makes a beautiful layer of ice that breaks thing and stops all human endeavor.

Just in case anyone hasn't mentioned it yet, sleet comes down as frozen precip, but freezing rain turns into ice on contact with cold surfaces after it's already passed through the atmosphere as water.

Unrelated, but related: Unnecessary quotes