hurricane
pronunciation
How to pronounce hurricane in British English:
UK [ˈhʌrɪkən]
How to pronounce hurricane in American English:
US [ˈhɜːrəkeɪn]
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- Noun:
- a severe tropical cyclone usually with heavy rains and winds moving a 73-136 knots (12 on the Beaufort scale)
Word Origin
- hurricane
- hurricane: [16] European voyagers first encountered the swirling winds of the hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and they borrowed a local word to name it – Carib huracan. This found its way into English via Spanish. (An early alternative form was furacano, which came from a Carib variant furacan.)
- hurricane (n.)
- 1550s, a partially deformed adoptation from Spanish huracan (Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, "Historia General y Natural de las Indias," 1547-9), furacan (in the works of Pedro Mártir De Anghiera, chaplain to the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and historian of Spanish explorations), from an Arawakan (W. Indies) word. In Portuguese, it became furacão. For confusion of initial -f- and -h- in Spanish, see hacienda. The word is first in English in Richard Eden's "Decades of the New World": These tempestes of the ayer (which the Grecians caule Tiphones ...) they caule furacanes. OED records 39 different spellings, mostly from the late 16c., including forcane, herrycano, harrycain, hurlecane. Modern form became frequent from 1650, established after 1688. Shakespeare uses hurricano ("King Lear," "Troilus and Cressida"), but in reference to waterspouts.
Example
- 1. Hurricane isaac is fixed near the southeast louisiana coast .
- 2. But can the euro withstand today 's hurricane ?
- 3. We just ran into our own hurricane .
- 4. Where hurricane sandy destroyed homes and businesses .
- 5. Hurricane sandy is heading up the east coast .