? Obs. [ad. Gr. τῦφῶν: see prec. In later use partly suggested by TYPHOON. Cf. F. typhon, Sp. tifon, It. tifone.] A whirlwind, cyclone, tornado; a violent storm of wind, a hurricane.
1555. Eden, Decades, 21. These tempestes of the ayer (which the Grecians caule Tiphones that is whyrle wyndes) they caule, Furacanes.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., I. xi. 13. A wind called by the Gretians Typhon, of Plinie Vertex or Vortex.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. xlvii. I. 24. If the clift or breach bee not great, so that the wind be constrained to turn round, to rol and whirle in his discent,… it makes a whirlepuffe or ghust called Typhon.
1627. May, Lucan, VII. 177. Cloud breaking Typhons did arise.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 27. There happen’d a Typhon or Tornado-wind,… not above forty yards broad.
1699. Typhones [see TYPHOON β].
1727–46. Thomson, Summer, 984. The circling Typhon, whirl’d from point to point, Exhausting all the rage of all the sky.
1761. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 126/1. On the 4th of May, a most violent whirlwind of that kind commonly known by the name of Typhons, passed down Ashley river [S. Carolina].
1820. T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I. iv. 121. A violent sirocco blew from the S.E…. As long as this Typhon prevails, the streets are generally deserted.
1826. Hood, She is far fr. the Land, 21. All the sea-dangers,… Tornadoes and typhons, And horrible syphons.
† b. Applied erroneously to a waterspont. (Cf. quot. 1625 s.v. TYPHOON α) Obs. rare–1.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., I. xxi. 394. I am at a loss whether we ought to reckon these spouts called typhons; which are sometimes seen at land, or the same kind with those so often described by mariners, at sea.
† c. spec. = TYPHOON b. Obs.
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, III. 186. The storms they call typhons, which are peculiar to the seas of China.
