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haboob

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 3 April 2025

Etymology

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A large dust cloud over the city
A haboob in the Sahara desert.

Borrowed from Arabic هَبُوب (habūb, “strong wind, gale; haboob”),[1] from the root ه ب ب (h b b) (“relating to wind blowing”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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haboob (plural haboobs)

  1. A violent duststorm or sandstorm in the deserts of Arabia, North Africa, India, or North America. [from late 19th c.]
    Hypernyms: duststorm, sandstorm
    Near-synonym: duster
    • 1897 September, Henry T. W. Mann, “Report on the Working of the Army Veterinary Department with the Suakin Force, 1896”, in The Veterinary Journal and Annals of Comparative Pathology, volume XLV, London: Baillière, Tindall & Cox, […], →OCLC, page 182:
      Sandstorms were very prevalent during the first three months; they are called "Haboob." A fall in temperature of a few degrees in the hot months was always accompanied by these storms.
    • 1931, H[arold] E[dwin] Hurst, P. Phillips, “Meteorology”, in The Nile Basin (Physical Department Paper; number 26), volume I (General Description of the Basin, Meteorology, Topography of the White Nile Basin), Cairo: Government Press [for the Physical Department, Ministry of Public Works, Egypt], →OCLC, page 31:
      In the Central Sudan storms known as "haboobs" occur. At Khartoum in 6 years 140 haboobs occurred between May and October and 35 between November and April so that they are more frequent in the rainy season. The average duration of these storms obtained from observation of 45 haboobs at Khartoum in 3½ hours.
    • 1999, Federico Norte, “HABOOB”, in Michael A. Mares, editor, Encyclopedia of Deserts, Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 262:
      Haboobs tend to be most frequent along the edges of great deserts. […] Haboobs are fairly short-lived and seldom last more than three hours. […] A great amount of sand can be deposited during a haboob, and it is this type of dust storm that became the symbol of the dust bowl in the Great Plains of the United States, particularly in Oklahoma, in the 1930s.
    • 2013 September, Giles Slade, “Drought in the Carbon Summer”, in American Exodus: Climate Change and the Coming Flight for Survival, Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers, →ISBN, page 154:
      Americans used to call these storms “dusters,” but as a sign of increasing globalization, most news outlets now call them by their Gulf Arabic name haboob. In any case, haboobs and tornadoes are intensifying in the United States. In Blackwell, Oklahoma on October 21, 2012, a haboob with a storm front two miles across closed the town and stopped all traffic on I-35 while causing about half a million dollars in damage.

Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Compare “haboob, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; “haboob, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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