Synonyms for typhoon
| Grammar : Noun |
| Spell : tahy-foon |
| Phonetic Transcription : taɪˈfun |
Définition of typhoon
Origin :- Tiphon "violent storm, whirlwind, tornado," 1550s, from Greek typhon "whirlwind," personified as a giant, father of the winds, perhaps from typhein "to smoke" (cf. typhus). The meaning "cyclone, violent hurricane of India or the China Seas" (1580s) is first recorded in T. Hickock's translation of an account in Italian of a voyage to the East Indies by Caesar Frederick, a merchant of Venice:
- concerning which Touffon ye are to vnderstand, that in the East Indies often times, there are not stormes as in other countreys; but euery 10. or 12. yeeres there are such tempests and stormes, that it is a thing incredible, but to those that haue seene it, neither do they know certainly what yeere they wil come. ["The voyage and trauell of M. Caesar Fredericke, Marchant of Venice, into the East India, and beyond the Indies"]
- This sense of the word, in reference to titanic storms in the East Indies, first appears in Europe in Portuguese in the mid-16th century. It aparently is from tufan, a word in Arabic, Persian, and Hindi meaning "big cyclonic storm." Yule ["Hobson-Jobson," London, 1903] writes that "the probability is that Vasco [da Gama] and his followers got the tufao ... direct from the Arab pilots." The Arabic word sometimes is said to be from Greek typhon, but other sources consider it purely Semitic, though the Greek word might have influenced the form of the word in English. Al-tufan occurs several times in the Koran for "a flood or storm" and also for Noah's Flood. Chinese (Cantonese) tai fung "a great wind" also might have influenced the form or sense of the word in English, and that term and the Indian one may have had some mutual influence; toofan still means "big storm" in India.
- noun weather event
- We was heaving cargo overboard like a leaky ship in a typhoon.
- Extract from : « Cape Cod Stories » by Joseph C. Lincoln
- And then he closed resolutely his entries: "Every appearance of a typhoon coming on."
- Extract from : « Typhoon » by Joseph Conrad
- When a typhoon is approaching vessels have to run to Cavite for shelter.
- Extract from : « The Philippine Islands » by John Foreman
- Do you think we are going wrong, or that there is a typhoon within hail?
- Extract from : « Four Young Explorers » by Oliver Optic
- Another time, and we were caught in a typhoon off the north coast.
- Extract from : « The Great White Tribe in Filipinia » by Paul T. Gilbert
- When we approached Manila we were in the tail of a typhoon, but the danger was past.
- Extract from : « A Tour of the Missions » by Augustus Hopkins Strong
- All this was of as little avail as the waving of a lady's fan against a typhoon.
- Extract from : « Destruction and Reconstruction: » by Richard Taylor
- “We shall have a typhoon—a precious hard one too, I suspect,” he answered.
- Extract from : « Peter Trawl » by W. H. G. Kingston
- It may be that there are some persons in Britain who do not know precisely what a typhoon is.
- Extract from : « The Lonely Island » by R.M. Ballantyne
- A typhoon had caught them in its grip and threatened to send them all to Davy Jones.
- Extract from : « Bert Wilson on the Gridiron » by J. W. Duffield
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Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019