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View synonyms for tempest

tempest

[ tem-pist ]

noun

  1. a violent windstorm, especially one with rain, hail, or snow.
  2. a violent commotion, disturbance, or tumult.


verb (used with object)

  1. to affect by or as by a tempest; disturb violently.

tempest

/ ˈtɛmpɪst /

noun

  1. literary.
    a violent wind or storm
  2. a violent commotion, uproar, or disturbance
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


verb

  1. poetic.
    tr to agitate or disturb violently
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of tempest1

1200–50; Middle English tempeste < Old French < Vulgar Latin *tempesta, for Latin tempestās season, weather, storm, equivalent to tempes- (variant stem of tempus time) + -tās -ty 2
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Word History and Origins

Origin of tempest1

C13: from Old French tempeste, from Latin tempestās storm, from tempus time
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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. tempest in a teacup. teacup ( def 3 ).
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Example Sentences

Scientists can more granularly study homegrown tempests with storm-chasing aircraft and Earth-orbiting satellites.

Her work points at a sort of “cloud greenhouse effect” in which the infrared radiation reflected as the sun warms the Earth gets trapped under nascent storms, which makes stronger tempests build more quickly.

It includes old-school observations by unlucky souls who directly observed the tempests as well as remote sensing data from the modern satellite era.

Perhaps it wasn’t pairs of electrons that were forming, but tempests of electrons known as skyrmions.

Now that the 2021 filing season has opened, people should be prepared for a tempest of tax issues, Collins said.

Much of the nation has been caught up in a tempest that resembled one of the dinner-table scenes in August: Osage County.

Tempest, hurricane, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, or Big Bang?

The first grey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake two hemispheres.

Of course, this particular fooforaw may be a tempest in a teapot: OPM may rule that they can offer subsidies to staffers.

But for now at least, most seem to have weathered the initial tempest without incurring too much damage.

In truth, M. de Biancourt's goodness and prudence seemed much shaken by this tempest of human passions.

What might be of a disturbing nature in the old farmhouse could not, she thought, be as fearsome as the approaching tempest.

And Isabel dropped her head into her arms and burst into a wild tempest of tears, like a child that has had its first whipping.

The Republic had proved an utter failure, and France was but a tempest-tossed ocean of anarchy.

I round the threshold wandering here,Vainly the tempest and the rain invoke,That they may keep my lady prisoner.

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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.

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temper tantrumtempest in a teapot