TEMPEST • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tempest

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/tˈɛmpəst/ Listen

noun

Tempest n.

An extensive current of wind, rushing with great velocity and violence, and commonly attended with rain, hail, or snow; a furious storm. "(We) caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, Each on his rock transfixed."

Fig.: Any violent tumult or commotion; as, a political tempest; a tempest of war, or of the passions.

A fashionable assembly; a drum. See the Note under Drum, n., 4. (Archaic) Note: Tempest is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tempest-beaten, tempest-loving, tempest-tossed, tempest-winged, and the like.

Synonyms: Storm; agitation; perturbation. See Storm.

verb

Tempest v. t. To disturb as by a tempest. (Obs.) "Part huge of bulk Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean."

Tempest v. i. To storm. (Obs.)

See images of 'Tempest'

Etymology of 'Tempest'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tempest" Quotes from Famous Books

... weather-cocks as men waiting in antechambers watch the lackey. Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered them; weeks of watery tempest stupefied them. That aspect of the sky which they now regard as disagreeable they then beheld ...

— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... ship falter in swing—an ominous check in her lift to the heaving sea. Then out of the blackness to windward a swift towering crest reared up—a high wall of moving water, winged with leagues of tempest at its back. It struck us sheer on the broadside, and shattered its bulk aboard in a whelming torrent, brimming the decks with a weight that left no life in the labouring barque. We were swept to leeward at the first shock, a huddled ...

— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... Paine's "The Tempest," which develops musically the chief episodes of Shakespeare's play. He has also written a valuable overture to "As You Like It;" he has set Keats' "Realm of Fancy" exquisitely, and Milton's "Nativity." And he has ...

— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... forced the Macedonians to exchange their position of semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As the fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed 300 triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore, a night attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract between the Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster ...

— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... a breath of air was stirring; a dead, oppressive calm, like the sultriness of noonday, had settled down on land and water. Half an hour later the west was inky black with massed storm clouds and fleecy forerunners of the coming tempest were straying one after another ...

— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

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