a. [f. STORM sb. + -Y.]
1. Of the weather, season, air, sky, sea, etc.: Characterized by storm or tempest; tempestuous. Of a place or region: Subject to storms.
a. 1200. in Anglia, XI. 369. Hit byð … windiʓ sumer and storemiʓ and ʓeswyncfull hærfest.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 22691. A stormi dai, a stret of au.
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 455. And if the wedir stormy were For colde she shulde haue deyd there.
1390. Gower, Conf., I. 35. Now be the stormy wynter shoures.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. liv. 8. I wolde make haist to escape, from the stormy wynde and tempest.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. viii. 21. And all his windes Dan Aeolus did keepe, From stirring vp their stormy enmitie.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 156. Beyond the stormy Hebrides.
1764. Goldsm., Trav., 167. Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 356. The wildest and most stormy mountains in Scotland.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxiii. 164. A wild stormy morning.
1885. Manch. Exam., 15 May, 5/6. An Atlantic steamer … ploughing its course across stormy oceans.
2. fig. Of persons, their temper or looks; of times, events, circumstances, etc.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, Prol. 3. Now with halesome lare drouyd & stormy saules it bryngis in til clere & pesful lyf.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, II. 778. For loue is yet þe meste stormy lyf. Ibid. (c. 1386), Clerk’s T., 939. O Stormy peple, vnsad, and euere vntrewe.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, I. 2245. His stormy cruel aventure. Ibid., III. 4079. Allas! Fortune,… Whan folk most triste in þi stormy face … Þanne is þi Ioye aweye to turne & wryþe.
1592. Arden of Feversham, III. v. 113. Nothing shall hide me from thy stormy looke.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. i. 164. Your health, the which if you giue-o’re To stormy Passion, must perforce decay.
1641. J. Jackson, True Evang. T., iii. 193. That Religion which is more turbulent, seditious, and stormy, let it be throwne over-board to lighten the ship of the Church.
1700. Dryden, Cymon & Iphig., 257. While stormy Cymon thus in secret said [etc.].
1831. Greville, Mem. (1874), II. 153. There was … every promise of a stormy session.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., ii. I. 223. Shaftesbury and Buckingham … appeared at the head of the stormy democracy of the city.
1891. Smiles, Mem. J. Murray, I. xvii. 443. The discussion was long and stormy before the meeting broke up.
1915. J. Kelman, Salted with Fire, iv. 40. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast emergencies were constantly arising.
b. Path. of inflammation.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 903. Meningitis is usually so stormy in its manifestation that [etc.].
3. Associated or connected with storms; indicative, predictive or symbolical of storms. poet.
1560. Rolland, Seven Sages, 24. Anone thay spy into the Firmament Ane stormie sterne that troublit thair Intent.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 419. Now sing we stormy Stars.
1761. Glover, Medea, V. v. 94. Grim Neptune yonder shakes his stormy trident.
1842. Tennyson, Sir Galahad, 25. When down the stormy crescent goes.
b. Stormy petrel: the bird Procellaria pelagica. Also fig., a person who delights in strife, or whose appearance on the scene is a harbinger of coming trouble.
1776. Pennant, Zool., II. 553. Stormy Petrel.
1847. Ld. Campbell, Chancellors, ccviii. VII. 479. Eldon … came to London … on account of rumours of a dissolution of the Ministry. He went, with some, by the name of the ‘Stormy Petrel,’ being supposed to delight in such convulsions.
1892. World, 6 April, 15 (Brewer). Dr. von Esmarch [a physician] is regarded at court as a stormy petrel, and every effort was made to conceal his visit to the German emperor.
4. Relating to or concerned with storms. poet.
1725. Pope, Odyss., I. 232. A duteous people, and industrious Isle, To naval arts inur’d, and stormy toil.
