different between typhoon vs twister

English

Etymology

Its ultimate origin is generally thought to be Sinitic ????? ("big wind", Mandarin dàf?ng, Cantonese daai6 fung1).

It entered English as early as 1588, perhaps via Portuguese tufão (attested since at least 1560) from Arabic ???????? (??f?n) (compare Persian ?????? (tufân), Hindi ?????? (t?f?n)).

Within English, its form was influenced by Ancient Greek ????? (Tuphôn, “Typhon, father of the winds”). (Some sources suggest the term originated in Greek and travelled via Arabic to Chinese before making its way back to Europe, but this is implausible.)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ta??fu?n/
• (General American) enPR: t?fo?on?, IPA^(key): /ta??fun/
• Rhymes: -u?n

Noun

typhoon (plural typhoons)

1. A weather phenomenon in the northwestern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane, which results in wind speeds of 64 knots (118 km/h) or above. Equivalent to a cyclone in the Indian Ocean and Indonesia/Australia.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Russian: ??????? (tajfún)
  • ? Kazakh: ?????? (tayfwn)
• ? Turkish: tayfun

Translations

Verb

typhoon (third-person singular simple present typhoons, present participle typhooning, simple past and past participle typhooned)

1. (intransitive) To swirl like a hurricane.

See also

• cyclone
• hurricane
• tornado

References

English

Etymology

From Middle English twyster, equivalent to twist +? -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?tw?st?(?)/
• Rhymes: -?st?(r)

Noun

twister (plural twisters)

1. One who twists.
   1. One whose occupation is to twist or join the threads of one warp to those of another, in weaving.
2. The instrument used in twisting, or making twists.
   • 1653, John Wallis, Grammatica Linguæ Anglicanæ

     He, twirling his twister, makes a twist of the twine.

3. A ball delivered with a twist, as in cricket or billiards.
4. (colloquial) A tornado.
5. (carpentry) A girder

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Craig to this entry?)

6. (dated) The inner part of the thigh, the proper place to rest upon when on horseback.
7. (Britain, colloquial) A crook, a villain.
8. The party game Twister, usually capitalized, or a variant.

Translations

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:twister.

Derived terms

• titty twister
• tongue-twister

See also

• dust devil
• water spout
• willy-willy

Anagrams

• Witters, retwist, witters, writest

French

Etymology

From twist +? -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /twis.te/

Verb

twister

1. (dance) to dance the twist, to twist

Conjugation

Further reading

• “twister” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).