cyclone

English

Cyclone Kyarr over the Arabian Sea

Cyclone Fantala over the southwest Indian Ocean near Madagascar

Etymology

Coined by Henry Piddington, probably in the 1840s, and based on some term in Ancient Greek. Sources disagree on the date and on which Ancient Greek term, though it had to be something derived from either κύκλος (kúklos, “circle, wheel”) or κυκλόω (kuklóō, “go around in a circle, form a circle, encircle”), for example the present active participle κυκλῶν (kuklôn).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kloʊn/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kləʊn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

cyclone (plural cyclones)

1. (broad sense) A weather phenomenon consisting of a system of winds rotating around a center of low atmospheric pressure
2. (narrow sense) Such weather phenomenon occurring in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean
3. A low pressure system.
4. (informal) The more or less violent, small-scale circulations such as tornadoes, waterspouts, and dust devils.
5. A strong wind.
6. A cyclone separator; the cylindrical vortex tube within such a separator

Quotations

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:cyclone.

Derived terms

• anticyclone
• cyclone cellar
• cyclone pit

Translations

rotating system of winds

• Albanian: ciklon (sq)
• Arabic: إِعْصَار‎ m (ʾiʿṣār)
• Armenian: ցիկլոն (hy) (cʿiklon)
• Breton: kelc'hwidenn (br)
• Bulgarian: циклон (bg) m (ciklon)
• Catalan: cicló (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 氣旋 (zh), 气旋 (zh) (qìxuán), 龍捲風 (zh), 龙卷风 (zh) (lóngjuǎnfēng)

• Czech: cyklón (cs) m
• Danish: orkan (da)
• Dutch: cycloon (nl) m, wervelstorm (nl) m
• Esperanto: ciklono
• Estonian: tsüklon
• Finnish: pyörremyrsky (fi)
• French: cyclone (fr) m
• German: Zyklon (de) m, Zyklone (de) f
• Greek:

  Ancient: κυκλῶν m (kuklôn)

  Modern: κυκλώνας (el) m (kyklónas)

• Gujarati: ચક્રવાત (cakravāt)
• Hebrew: ציקלון‎ (he) m (tziqlon)
• Hungarian: ciklon (hu)
• Interlingua: cyclon

• Italian: ciclone (it)
• Japanese: サイクロン (ja) (saikuron), 低気圧 (ja) (ていきあつ, teikiatsu)
• Latin: cyclonas
• Macedonian: циклон m (ciklon)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: syklon m

  Nynorsk: syklon m

• Persian: سیکلون‎ (siklon), چرخند‎ (fa) (čarxand)
• Portuguese: ciclone (pt) m
• Romanian: ciclon (ro) n
• Russian: цикло́н (ru) m (ciklón)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: циклон m, циклона f

  Roman: ciklon (sh) m, ciklona (sh) f

• Slovene: ciklon (sl) m
• Spanish: ciclón (es) m
• Swahili: saikloni m
• Swedish: cyklon (sv) c
• Tagalog: buhawi
• Telugu: తుఫాను (te) (tuphānu), గాలివాన (te) (gālivāna)
• Thai: ไซโคลน (th) (sai-kloon)
• Turkish: siklon (tr)

low pressure system

• Czech: cyklóna (cs) f
• Finnish: matalapaine (fi)

more or less violent, small-scale circulations of air

• Finnish: pyörremyrsky (fi)

strong wind

• Finnish: pyörremyrsky (fi), myrsky (fi)

South Pacific and Indian Ocean weather phenomenon

• Danish: cyklon c
• Finnish: trooppinen sykloni, sykloni (fi)
• French: cyclone (fr) m
• Greek: κυκλώνας (el) m (kyklónas)
• Gujarati: ચક્રવાત (cakravāt)
• Hindi: चक्रवात (hi) (cakravāt)

• Indonesian: siklon (id)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: syklon m

  Nynorsk: syklon m

• Swedish: cyklon (sv) c

cyclone separator — see cyclone separator

See also

• hurricane
• typhoon
• polar vortex
• cyclone on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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French

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κυκλῶν (kuklôn), present active participle of κυκλόω (kuklóō, “I encircle”), from κύκλος (kúklos, “circle”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /si.klon/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

cyclone m (plural cyclones)

1. cyclone (rotating system of winds)

Further reading

• “cyclone” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).