simoom
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of simoom
from Arabic samūm poisonous, from sam poison, from Aramaic sammā poison
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
If you happen to be in Africa and stuck in a “hot, dry, suffocating sand-wind” which sweeps across the deserts at intervals during the spring, you should know that you are in a simoom.
From Time • Mar. 20, 2014
Waddles is a human simoom, carrying dust, sand and cactus.
From Fore! by Loan, Charles Emmett Van
No desert simoom, if it had passed over it, could have effected it more thoroughly.
From Memories of Bethany by Macduff, John R. (John Ross)
On another occasion we met the simoom, the purple haze in rushing past threatening suffocation.
From The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure by Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir
It was late in the afternoon when we reached the spot again, and a wind which threatened simoom had covered the heart-shaped footmarks made by our own and other camels, as with a tidal wave.
From Lord John in New York by Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
