tornado

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A violent, spinning column of wind shaped like a funnel that touches the ground.

   The tornado tore the roof off several houses.

Simplified etymology

Tornado entered English in the mid-16th century and originally denoted a violent thunderstorm in the tropical Atlantic. It comes from Spanish tronada, “thunderstorm,” perhaps with influence from tornar, “to turn.”

From earlier English ternado, attested since the 1550s as a nautical term for a windy thunderstorm. From Spanish tronada (“thunderstorm”), from tronar (“to thunder”), from Latin tonō (“to thunder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”). The o and r were reversed in English (metathesis) under influence of Spanish tornar (“to twist, to turn”), from Latin tornō (“to turn”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary