desert devil

American

[dez-ert dev-uhl] / ˈdɛz ərt ˌdɛv əl /

noun

Meteorology.

a dust whirl that occurs in a desert.

I got some great shots of a blooming cactus before spotting this desert devil on what seemed to be a windless day.

First recorded in 1910–15

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023