CYCLONE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Cyclone

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/sɪklˈoʊn/ Listen

noun

Cyclone n.

(Meteor.) A violent storm, often of vast extent, characterized by high winds rotating about a calm center of low atmospheric pressure. This center moves onward, often with a velocity of twenty or thirty miles an hour. Note: The atmospheric disturbance usually accompanying a cyclone, marked by an onward moving area of high pressure, is called an anticyclone.

(Meteor.) In general, a condition of the atmosphere characterized by a central area of pressure much lower than that of surrounding areas, and a system of winds blowing inward and around (clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the northern); called also a low-area storm. It is attended by high temperature, moist air, abundant precipitation, and clouded sky. The term includes the hurricane, typhoon, and tropical storms; it should not be applied to the moderate disturbances attending ordinary areas of low pressure nor to tornadoes, waterspouts, or "twisters," in which the vertical motion is more important than the horizontal.

A tornado. See above, and Tornado. (Middle U. S.)

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Etymology of 'Cyclone'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cyclone" Quotes from Famous Books

... your old tub down to a flying balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with elephants until every inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and she'd outfoot you on every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr. Give me the Ark and a breeze, and your House-boat wouldn't be within hailing distance of her five minutes after the start if she had 40,000 square yards of canvas ...

— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others strength and success; here was the old philosophy which accepted the prairie fire and cyclone, and survived them without advancement, yet without repining. Perhaps in different places and surroundings a submission so stoic might have impressed him; in gentlemen who tucked their dirty trousers in their muddy boots and lived only for the gold they dug, it did not seem to him heroic. Nor ...

— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... plank, take inch boards for boxes, cut to fit between joists and rafters, and fill with concrete to upper side of rafters, which makes walls that will keep out cold and damp, all kinds of vermin, and a roof which nothing but a cyclone can remove. In making door and window frames, make the jambs two inches narrower than the thickness of the walls, nailing ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... else. In a kind of haze, I beheld half the savory viands of earth spread under the eyes and nostrils of a man who had not tasted food for the third day. I did not ask for any. I had reached that stage of starvation that is like the still centre of a cyclone, when no hunger is felt. But it may be that a touch of it all crept into my report; for when the editor had read it, ...

— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... in waiting, the Archduchess was making few demands on her. A very fever of preparation was on Annunciata. She spent hours over laces and lingerie, was having jewels reset for Hedwig, after ornate designs of her own contribution, was the center of a cyclone of boxes, tissue paper, material, furs, and fashion books, while maids scurried about and dealers and dressmakers awaited her pleasure. She was, perhaps, happier than she had been for years, visited ...

— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

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