Forms: (6–7 ternado), 7– tornado; also 7–8 turnado, (7 tornatho, tornada, 8 tournado). See also TORNADE. [In Hakluyt and his contemporaries, ternado; from Purchas, 1625, onward, turnado, tournado, tornado. In none of these forms does the word exist in Spanish or Portuguese. But the early sense makes it probable that ternado was a bad adaptation (perh. orig. a blundered spelling) of Sp. tronada ‘thunderstorm’ (f. tronar to thunder), and that tornado was an attempt to improve it by treating it as a derivative of Sp. tornar to turn, return; cf. tornado pple., returned. It is notable that this spelling is identified with explanations in which, not the thunder, but the turning, shifting, or whirling winds are the main feature. This is emphasized in the variants turnado, tournado. Mod.F. tornado is from Eng. (not Portuguese, as in Littré).]
1. A term applied by 16th-c. navigators to violent thunderstorms of the tropical Atlantic, with torrential rain, and often with sudden and violent gusts of wind. Now rare or passing into 2.
1556. W. Towerson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 100. The 4. day we had terrible thunder and lightning, with exceeding great gusts of raine, called Ternados.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. II. 103. We had nothing but Ternados, with such thunder, lightning, and raine, that we could not keep our men drie. Ibid. (1600), III. 719. The ternados, that is thundrings and lightnings.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 216. We crost the Æquator, where we had too many Tornathoes [ed. 1638, 355 wee were pesterd with continuall Tornathes; a variable weather compos’d of lowd blasts, stinking showers, and terrible thunders; ed. 1677, 393 Tornado’s].
1697. Dampier, Voy. round World (1699), 31. We had fine weather while we lay here [an. 1681], only some Tornadoes or Thunder-showers.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. xliv. 140. The Coast is subject to frequent Tornadoes, or Squalls of Wind and Rain, introduced with much Thunder and Lightning.
1788. J. Matthews, Voy., iii. (1791), 30. Had at least one tornado every twenty-four hours, which are always attended with violent gusts of wind, thunder, lightning, and excessive rain; but which greatly purify the air.
1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 71. The return of the storm, swooping down in its various elements of thunder, lightning, and rain, with all the fierce grandeur of an Alpine tornado.
† b. transf. Chiefly in pl. The season at which such storms are prevalent. Obs. rare.
In quot. 1657, perh. associated with the ‘turning’ of the sun at the tropic.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 5. Nor is this weather rare about the Æquinoctiall; by Mariners termed the Tornadoes: and tis so vncertaine, that now you shall haue a quiet breath and gale, and suddenly an vnexpected violent gust.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 9. The time of our stay there, being the Turnado, when the Sun … became Zenith to the Inhabitants.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 10. These Seasons the Seamen term the Tornados.
2. A very violent storm (now without implication of thunder), affecting a limited area, in which the wind is constantly changing its direction or rotating; a whirling wind, whirlwind; loosely, any very violent storm of wind, a hurricane. spec. a. On the west coast of Africa, a rotatory storm in which the wind revolves violently under a moving arch of clouds; b. In the Mississippi region of U.S., a destructive rotatory storm under a funnel-shaped cloud like a water-spout, which advances in a narrow path over the land for many miles.
(Quot. 1625 shows the transition from 1 to 2.)
[1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, II. IX. vi. § 1. 1463. We met with winds which the Mariners call The Turnadoes, so variable and vncertaine, that sometime within the space of one houre, all the two and thirtie seuerall winds will blow. These winds were accompanied with much thunder and lightning, and with extreme rayne.]
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Seamen, 17. A gust, a storme, a spoute, a loume gaile, an eddy wind, a flake of wind, a Turnado.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Tornado, (from the Span. Tornada, i. a returne, or turning about) is a sudden, violent and forcible storme of raine and ill weather at sea, so termed by the Mariners; and does most usually happen about the Æquator.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 23/1. A Turnado [is] a fierce Wind.
1693. Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 434. The Tornados are variable Winds, call’d in the Portugal Language Travados.
1710. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., II. Tornado, is the Name given by the Seamen for a violent Storm of Wind, and sometimes followed by Rain; it usually swifts or turns about to almost all Points of the Compass, whence I suppose its name.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. 47. When a violent Tournado or Hurricane took us quite out of our knowledge.
1727. [Dorrington], Philip Quarll, 51. Several Storms and Turnadoes.
1755. Johnson, Tornado, a hurricane, a whirlwind.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), I. 13. From what quarter these tornadoes or squalls proceed, I cannot positively affirm.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 357. While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies.
1788. Cowper, Negro’s Compl., 33. Hark! He answers—Wild tornadoes … Wasting towns, plantations, meadows.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 45. This tract is subject to frequent calms, and to sudden gusts of winds called tornadoes which blow from all points of the horizon.
1849. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 296. The gale increased to an absolute tornado.
b. 1849. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S. (1850), II. 199. This tornado checked the progress of Natchez, as did the removal of the seat of Legislature to Jackson.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 130/1. The region of most frequent occurrence of tornadoes is the region where a large number of the cyclones of the United States appear to originate. Ibid., 130/2. The wind of the tornado reaches a velocity probably never equalled in cyclones.
c. fig.; cf. tempest, storm, whirlwind.
1818. Lady Morgan, Autobiog. (1859), 28. We live in a sort of tornado between business and pleasure, and my head literally turns round.
1840. Thackeray, Pict. Rhapsody, Wks. 1900, XIII. 334. Beneath one of Turner’s magnificent tornadoes of colour.
1849. Clough, Bothie, I. 156. On this passage followed a great tornado of cheering.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xvii. 416. The tornado of the north—Harry Percy, most commonly surnamed ‘Hotspur.’
3. attrib. and Comb., as tornado cloud, mood, night, oath, pitch, rain, spirit, wind; tornado-breeding, -haunted, -plagued adjs.; tornado-cellar, -pit, an underground place of refuge from tornadoes (in sense 2 b); a cyclone-pit; tornado-funnel: see 2 b; tornado-lamp, tornado-lantern, a hurricane-lamp, storm-lantern.
1861. H. Angus, Serm., 150. The death-distilling, *tornado-breeding atmospheric stagnation of the tropics.
1899. Mary Kingsley, W. African Stud., ii. 48. If … you see that well-known *tornado-cloud arch coming … the sooner you get her [the ship] ready to run, the better.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 28 Dec., 7/1. Her ascent … to the bleak summit of a *tornado-haunted volcano.
1897. Dublin Rev., Oct., 299. Saner counsels prevailed over Gordon’s *tornado mood.
1896. Morn. News (Wilmington, DE), 11 June, 4/3. As a matter of precaution it would probably be well for folk in some parts of the *tornado-plagued West to enter their cyclone cellars at two o’clock in the afternoon and stay there until supper time.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 312. Particularly vigilant has he got to be on tornado nights. Ibid., 396. When the wet season’s *tornado rain comes down on it.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xiii. 330. His *tornado spirit hurries him at once into a quarrel with the Duke of Austria.
1669. Phil. Trans., IV. 1003. These North-East-Winds hold most commonly to 8 degrees North-Latitude, and then begin the *Tornado Winds.
1671. R. Bohun, Wind, 236. So variable and unsteady are the Tornado-winds, so little obliged to any certain law.
Hence Tornadoish a. [-ISH1]. (nonce-wd.)
1857. Wrexham Advertiser, 27 June, 2/2. Lord Derby is a man of some refinement and taste, and must shudder beneath the tornadoish, hot-windy yells and screams of his Irish orator.
1889. Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 16 Jan. Its [a storm’s] powerful warm, wet, tornadoish right, and cold, snowy, blizzardy left hand.
