gale
pronunciation
How to pronounce gale in British English:
UK [ɡeɪl]
How to pronounce gale in American English:
US [ɡeɪl]
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- Noun:
- a strong wind moving 45-90 knots; force 7 to 10 on Beaufort scale
Word Origin
- gale
- gale: [16] Gale is a puzzling word. An isolated early example of what appears to be the word, in the phrase gale wind (‘Our life like smoke or chaff is carried away as with a gale wind’, Zachary Boyd, The Last Battle 1619), suggests that it may originally have been an adjective. If this is so, a possible candidate as a source may be Norwegian galen ‘bad’ – making gale etymologically a ‘bad wind’. The Norwegian adjective in turn may go back to Old Norse galinn ‘bewitched, enchanted’, a derivative of galo ‘sing, bewitch, enchant’ (source of English yell and related to the final syllable of nightingale).=> nightingale, yell
- gale (n.)
- "strong wind," especially at sea, 1540s, from gaile "wind," origin uncertain. Perhaps from Old Norse gol "breeze," or Old Danish gal "bad, furious" (often used of weather), which are related to Old Norse galinn "furious, mad, frantic; enchanted, bewitched," from gala "to sing, chant," the wind so called from its raging or on the notion of being raised by spells (but OED finds reason to doubt this). Or perhaps it is named for the sound, from Old English galan "to sing," or giellan "to yell." The Old Norse and Old English words all are from the source of yell (v.). In nautical use, between a stiff breeze and a storm; in technical meteorological use, a wind between 32 and 63 miles per hour.
Example
- 1. Gale winds came on top of the floods .
- 2. It is now being forced to do so in a gale .
- 3. The temperature there is expected / supposed to drop by 8 to 14 degrees celsius amid the howling / nippy gust / gale .