Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Fwd: williwaw: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2014/1/21
Subject: williwaw: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Tuesday, January 21, 2014

williwaw \WIL-ee-waw\, noun:

a violent squall that blows in near-polar latitudes, as in the Strait of Magellan, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands.

Outside, a new note has crept into the wind, a black williwaw sound straight from the terrible wastes to the north.
-- Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, 1961

There was a big williwaw blowing and nothing was moving on the island. So I was a couple of days late in leaving…
-- Edited by Fern Chandonnet, Alaska at War, 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered, 2007

Williwaw entered English in the 1830s. It is of unknown origin.

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