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Webster 1913 Edition


Etesian

E-te′sian

,
Adj.
[L.
etesiae
, pl., periodic winds, Gr. [GREEK], fr. [GREEK] year: cf. F.
étésien
.]
Periodical; annual; – applied to winds which annually blow from the north over the Mediterranean, esp. the eastern part, for an irregular period during July and August.

Webster 1828 Edition


Etesian

ETE'SIAN

,
Adj.
ete'zhan. [L. etesius; Gr. a year.]
Stated; blowing at stated times of the year; periodical. Etesian winds are yearly or anniversary winds, answering to the monsoons of the East Indies. The wind is applied, in Greek and Roman writers, to the periodical winds in the Mediterranean, from whatever quarter they blow.

Definition 2024


etesian

etesian

English

Adjective

etesian (not comparable)

  1. Pertaining to a dry north wind which blows in the eastern Mediterranean.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.ii.3:
      Is it from those etesian winds, or melting of snow in the mountains under the Equator […], or from those great dropping perpetual showers […]?
    • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:
      Dixon, assailed without mercy by his Sensorium, almost in a swoon, finds himself, on Nights of Cloud, less and less able to forgo emerging at dusk, cloaked against the Etesian wind, and making directly for the prohibited parts of town.

Translations

Noun

etesian (plural etesians)

  1. A dry north wind which blows in the eastern Mediterranean.

Translations