Is it just me, or has the weather seemed highly volatile over the past couple of months? We’ve had a summer filled with scorching hot days, sudden cold turns, buckets of rain and the sort of wild winds that the Ancient Mariner used to complain about. And it’s the wind I want to focus on for a moment. So, let’s take a look at the words for winds:
Breeze—a gentle or light wind, from a Spanish word briza which originally meant a cool wind from the north, but since such winds were usually gentle and light the word changed in that direction when it bobbed up in English (from 1589)
Gale—the weather bureau seems to delight in threatening us with ‘gale force winds’ (the definition says, ‘a wind of considerable strength’). It turns up around 1547, but (says the Oxford) it is ‘of obscure origin’—although it may come from a Scandinavian word that meant ‘mad, furious’ (which sort of makes sense).
Cyclone—from the Greek word for a circle, because they spin (very fast!) in a circular motion. This was coined by English sea captain Henry Piddington in 1848.
Gust—we are often told with glee by the forecasters that there will be ‘gusts’ of up to (pick a number—something dangerous). ‘Gust’ is recorded from 1594 to mean ‘a sudden violent rush or blast of wind’ and seems to come from an Old Norse source word meaning ‘to gush or pour.’
Typhoon—is not a word our weather forecasters use, but it means a violent storm or tempest and seems to come from an Urdu word (Persian and Arabic) with much the same meaning.
Hurricane—should, strictly speaking, only be applied to violent windstorms in the West Indies, but mentally lazy people apply it to any such storm north of the equator (south of the equator it’s a cyclone—same thing really). The word seems to come from an Old Spanish source word (and turned up in English from 1555).
Mistral—is another wind word we don’t use here, and a good thing too since it sounds most unpleasant: ‘A strong, cold, north-westerly wind blowing through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean, mainly in winter.’
On top of which some winds around the world have their own local names. We’ll look at those tomorrow.
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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