different between windy vs windswept

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English windy, from Old English windi? (“windy”), from Proto-Germanic *windigaz (“windy”), equivalent to wind +? -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian wiendich (“windy”), West Frisian winich (“windy”), Dutch winderig (“windy”), German Low German windig (“windy”), German windig (“windy”), Swedish vindig (“windy”), Icelandic vindugur (“windy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?w?ndi/
• Rhymes: -?ndi

Adjective

windy (comparative windier, superlative windiest)

1. Accompanied by wind.

   It was a long and windy night.

2. Unsheltered and open to the wind.

   They made love in a windy bus shelter.

3. Empty and lacking substance.

   They made windy promises they would not keep.

4. Long-winded; orally verbose.
5. (informal) Flatulent.

   The Tex-Mex meal had made them somewhat windy.

6. (slang) Nervous, frightened.
   • 1995, Pat Barker, The Ghost Road, Penguin 2014 (The Regeneration Trilogy), p. 848:

     The thing is he's not windy, he's a perfectly good soldier, no more than reasonably afraid of rifle and machine-gun bullets, shells, grenades.

Synonyms

• (accompanied by wind): blowy, blustery, breezy
• See also Thesaurus:verbose
• See also Thesaurus:flatulent

Antonyms

• (accompanied by wind): calm, windless

Translations

Noun

windy (plural windies)

1. (colloquial) fart

Translations

Etymology 2

wind (“to curve, bend”) +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?wa?ndi/

Adjective

windy (comparative windier, superlative windiest)

1. (of a path etc) Having many bends; winding, twisting or tortuous.

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• wind-swept

Etymology

wind +? swept

Adjective

windswept (comparative more windswept, superlative most windswept)

1. Exposed to the winds.
   • 20 January 2017, Donald Trump, Inauguration Speech

     And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

   We struggled over the windswept moorland.

Translations