[OE. éastanwind: see EAST A. 1.] The wind blowing from the east. In England and in New England proverbially bleak, unpleasant, and injurious to health; hence often fig. In quots. from or allusions to the Bible the fig. sense refers to the scorching and destructive east wind of Palestine. Hence East-winded adj.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 143. Subsolanus, eastenwind.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. iii. (1495), 386. The Este wynde that hight Subsolanus.
1483. Cath. Angl., 118. Þe Estewynde, eurus.
1535. Coverdale, Ezek. xvii. 10. Withered … as soone as ye east wynde bloweth.
1649. R. Hodges, Plain. Direct., 4. An East-winde may spoil a nest of yong birds.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1754), 262. It was to no more purpose to talk to them, than to an East-wind.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 75. The east wind in Palestine … is parching, scorching, destructive to vegetation, oppressive to man.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 53. [A nature] so steeped … in sunshine that the east winds (physical or intellectual) of Boston … assailed it in vain.
1873. Miss Thackeray, Old Kensington, ii. 9. One bitter east-winded morning.
