AskDefine | Define wind

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The Collaborative Dictionary

Wind \Wind\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wound (wound) (rarely Winded); p. pr. & vb. n. Winding.] [OE. winden, AS. windan; akin to OS. windan, D. & G. winden, OHG. wintan, Icel. & Sw. vinda, Dan. vinde, Goth. windan (in comp.). Cf. Wander, Wend.] [1913 Webster]
To turn completely, or with repeated turns; especially, to turn about something fixed; to cause to form convolutions about anything; to coil; to twine; to twist; to wreathe; as, to wind thread on a spool or into a ball. [1913 Webster] Whether to wind The woodbine round this arbor. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
To entwist; to infold; to encircle. [1913 Webster] Sleep, and I will wind thee in arms. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
To have complete control over; to turn and bend at one's pleasure; to vary or alter or will; to regulate; to govern. "To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus." --Shak. [1913 Webster] In his terms so he would him wind. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And wind all other witnesses. --Herrick. [1913 Webster] Were our legislature vested in the prince, he might wind and turn our constitution at his pleasure. --Addison. [1913 Webster]
To introduce by insinuation; to insinuate. [1913 Webster] You have contrived . . . to wind Yourself into a power tyrannical. --Shak. [1913 Webster] Little arts and dexterities they have to wind in such things into discourse. --Gov. of Tongue. [1913 Webster]
To cover or surround with something coiled about; as, to wind a rope with twine. [1913 Webster] To wind off, to unwind; to uncoil. To wind out, to extricate. [Obs.] --Clarendon. To wind up. (a) To coil into a ball or small compass, as a skein of thread; to coil completely. (b) To bring to a conclusion or settlement; as, to wind up one's affairs; to wind up an argument. (c) To put in a state of renewed or continued motion, as a clock, a watch, etc., by winding the spring, or that which carries the weight; hence, to prepare for continued movement or action; to put in order anew. "Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years." --Dryden. "Thus they wound up his temper to a pitch." --Atterbury. (d) To tighten (the strings) of a musical instrument, so as to tune it. "Wind up the slackened strings of thy lute." --Waller. [1913 Webster]
Wind \Wind\, n. The act of winding or turning; a turn; a bend; a twist; a winding. [1913 Webster]
Wind \Wind\ (w[i^]nd, in poetry and singing often w[imac]nd; 277), n. [AS. wind; akin to OS., OFries., D., & G. wind, OHG. wint, Dan. & Sw. vind, Icel. vindr, Goth winds, W. gwynt, L. ventus, Skr. v[=a]ta (cf. Gr. 'ah`ths a blast, gale, 'ah^nai to breathe hard, to blow, as the wind); originally a p. pr. from the verb seen in Skr. v[=a] to blow, akin to AS. w[=a]wan, D. waaijen, G. wehen, OHG. w[=a]en, w[=a]jen, Goth. waian. [root]131. Cf. Air, Ventail, Ventilate, Window, Winnow.] [1913 Webster]
Air naturally in motion with any degree of velocity; a current of air. [1913 Webster] Except wind stands as never it stood, It is an ill wind that turns none to good. --Tusser. [1913 Webster] Winds were soft, and woods were green. --Longfellow. [1913 Webster]
Air artificially put in motion by any force or action; as, the wind of a cannon ball; the wind of a bellows. [1913 Webster]
Breath modulated by the respiratory and vocal organs, or by an instrument. [1913 Webster] Their instruments were various in their kind, Some for the bow, and some for breathing wind. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
Power of respiration; breath. [1913 Webster] If my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
Air or gas generated in the stomach or bowels; flatulence; as, to be troubled with wind. [1913 Webster]
Air impregnated with an odor or scent. [1913 Webster] A pack of dogfish had him in the wind. --Swift. [1913 Webster]
A direction from which the wind may blow; a point of the compass; especially, one of the cardinal points, which are often called the four winds. [1913 Webster] Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain. --Ezek. xxxvii.
[1913 Webster] Note: This sense seems to have had its origin in the East. The Hebrews gave to each of the four cardinal points the name of wind. [1913 Webster]
(Far.) A disease of sheep, in which the intestines are distended with air, or rather affected with a violent inflammation. It occurs immediately after shearing. [1913 Webster]
Mere breath or talk; empty effort; idle words. [1913 Webster] Nor think thou with wind Of airy threats to awe. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
(Zool.) The dotterel. [Prov. Eng.] [1913 Webster]
(Boxing) The region of the pit of the stomach, where a blow may paralyze the diaphragm and cause temporary loss of breath or other injury; the mark. [Slang or Cant] [Webster 1913 Suppl.] Note: Wind is often used adjectively, or as the first part of compound words. [1913 Webster] All in the wind. (Naut.) See under All, n. Before the wind. (Naut.) See under Before. Between wind and water (Naut.), in that part of a ship's side or bottom which is frequently brought above water by the rolling of the ship, or fluctuation of the water's surface. Hence, colloquially, (as an injury to that part of a vessel, in an engagement, is particularly dangerous) the vulnerable part or point of anything. Cardinal winds. See under Cardinal, a. Down the wind. (a) In the direction of, and moving with, the wind; as, birds fly swiftly down the wind. (b) Decaying; declining; in a state of decay. [Obs.] "He went down the wind still." --L'Estrange. In the wind's eye (Naut.), directly toward the point from which the wind blows. Three sheets in the wind, unsteady from drink. [Sailors' Slang] To be in the wind, to be suggested or expected; to be a matter of suspicion or surmise. [Colloq.] To carry the wind (Man.), to toss the nose as high as the ears, as a horse. To raise the wind, to procure money. [Colloq.] To take the wind or To have the wind, to gain or have the advantage. --Bacon. To take the wind out of one's sails, to cause one to stop, or lose way, as when a vessel intercepts the wind of another; to cause one to lose enthusiasm, or momentum in an activity. [Colloq.] To take wind, or To get wind, to be divulged; to become public; as, the story got wind, or took wind. Wind band (Mus.), a band of wind instruments; a military band; the wind instruments of an orchestra. Wind chest (Mus.), a chest or reservoir of wind in an organ. Wind dropsy. (Med.) (a) Tympanites. (b) Emphysema of the subcutaneous areolar tissue. Wind egg, an imperfect, unimpregnated, or addled egg. Wind furnace. See the Note under Furnace. Wind gauge. See under Gauge. Wind gun. Same as Air gun. Wind hatch (Mining), the opening or place where the ore is taken out of the earth. Wind instrument (Mus.), an instrument of music sounded by means of wind, especially by means of the breath, as a flute, a clarinet, etc. Wind pump, a pump moved by a windmill. Wind rose, a table of the points of the compass, giving the states of the barometer, etc., connected with winds from the different directions. Wind sail. (a) (Naut.) A wide tube or funnel of canvas, used to convey a stream of air for ventilation into the lower compartments of a vessel. (b) The sail or vane of a windmill. Wind shake, a crack or incoherence in timber produced by violent winds while the timber was growing. Wind shock, a wind shake. Wind side, the side next the wind; the windward side. [R.] --Mrs. Browning. Wind rush (Zool.), the redwing. [Prov. Eng.] Wind wheel, a motor consisting of a wheel moved by wind. Wood wind (Mus.), the flutes and reed instruments of an orchestra, collectively. [1913 Webster]
Wind \Wind\, v. i.
To turn completely or repeatedly; to become coiled about anything; to assume a convolved or spiral form; as, vines wind round a pole. [1913 Webster] So swift your judgments turn and wind. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
To have a circular course or direction; to crook; to bend; to meander; as, to wind in and out among trees. [1913 Webster] And where the valley winded out below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. --Thomson. [1913 Webster] He therefore turned him to the steep and rocky path which . . . winded through the thickets of wild boxwood and other low aromatic shrubs. --Sir W. Scott. [1913 Webster]
To go to the one side or the other; to move this way and that; to double on one's course; as, a hare pursued turns and winds. [1913 Webster] The lowing herd wind ?lowly o'er the lea. --Gray. [1913 Webster] To wind out, to extricate one's self; to escape. Long struggling underneath are they could wind Out of such prison. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
Wind \Wind\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Winded; p. pr. & vb. n. Winding.] [1913 Webster]
To expose to the wind; to winnow; to ventilate. [1913 Webster]
To perceive or follow by the scent; to scent; to nose; as, the hounds winded the game. [1913 Webster]
(a) To drive hard, or force to violent exertion, as a horse, so as to render scant of wind; to put out of breath. (b) To rest, as a horse, in order to allow the breath to be recovered; to breathe. [1913 Webster] To wind a ship (Naut.), to turn it end for end, so that the wind strikes it on the opposite side. [1913 Webster]
Wind \Wind\, v. t. [From Wind, moving air, but confused in sense and in conjugation with wind to turn.] [imp. & p. p. Wound (wound), R. Winded; p. pr. & vb. n. Winding.] To blow; to sound by blowing; esp., to sound with prolonged and mutually involved notes. "Hunters who wound their horns." --Pennant. [1913 Webster] Ye vigorous swains, while youth ferments your blood, .

Word Net

wind

Noun

1 air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure; "trees bent under the fierce winds"; "when there is no wind, row"; "the radioactivity was being swept upwards by the air current and out into the atmosphere" [syn: air current, current of air]
2 a tendency or force that influences events; "the winds of change"
3 breath; "the collision knocked the wind out of him"
4 empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk; "that's a lot of wind"; "don't give me any of that jazz" [syn: idle words, jazz, nothingness]
5 an indication of potential opportunity; "he got a tip on the stock market"; "a good lead for a job" [syn: tip, lead, steer, confidential information, hint]
6 a musical instrument in which the sound is produced by an enclosed column of air that is moved by the breath [syn: wind instrument]
7 a reflex that expels intestinal gas through the anus [syn: fart, farting, flatus, breaking wind]
8 the act of winding or twisting; "he put the key in the old clock and gave it a good wind" [syn: winding, twist]

Verb

1 to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course; "the river winds through the hills"; "the path meanders through the vineyards"; "sometimes, the gout wanders through the entire body" [syn: weave, thread, meander, wander]
2 extend in curves and turns; "The road winds around the lake" [syn: curve]
3 wrap or coil around; "roll your hair around your finger"; "Twine the thread around the spool" [syn: wrap, roll, twine] [ant: unwind]
4 catch the scent of; get wind of; "The dog nosed out the drugs" [syn: scent, nose]
5 coil the spring of (some mechanical device) by turning a stem; "wind your watch" [syn: wind up]
6 form into a wreath [syn: wreathe]
7 raise or haul up with or as if with mechanical help; "hoist the bicycle onto the roof of the car" [syn: hoist, lift] [also: wound]

Moby Thesaurus

Aqua-Lung, Vayu, Zephyr, Zephyrus, about ship, aerate, aerophone, air, air out, air-condition, air-cool, airify, allure, antelope, arch, arrow, artificial respiration, aspiration, asthmatic wheeze, back and fill, bagpipe, bait the hook, baloney, bay, bear away, bear off, bear to starboard, beat, beat about, beep, belch, bell, bend, bend back, bilge, birdlime, blah, blah-blah, blare, blast, blat, blow, blow a horn, blow the horn, blue darter, blue streak, bop, bosh, bow, box off, bray, break, breath, breath of air, breathing, bring about, bring round, broken wind, bugle, bull, bullshit, bunk, bunkum, burn out, burp, cannonball, cant, cant round, carillon, cast, cast about, catch, catch out, change course, change the heading, charge, circle, circulate, circumrotate, circumvolute, clarion, clue, cock, coil, come about, contort, corkscrew, cough, courser, crank, crap, crinkle, crook, cross-ventilate, cue, curl, curve, dart, debilitate, decoy, decurve, deflect, distort, divagate, do in, do up, dome, doodle, double a point, double reed, double-tongue, drift, eagle, electricity, embouchure, embow, encircle, enclose, enervate, enlace, enmesh, ensnare, ensnarl, entangle, entoil, entrap, entwine, envelop, enweb, err, eructation, excurse, exhalation, exhaust, expiration, express train, exsufflation, fag, fag out, fan, fart, fatigue, fetch about, fife, flag, flapdoodle, flash, flatulence, flatulency, flatuosity, flatus, flex, flute, frazzle, freshen, gas, gasp, gazelle, get up steam, gin, gird, girdle, go about, go adrift, go around, go astray, go round, greased lightning, greyhound, guff, gulp, gup, gybe, gyrate, gyre, hack, harass, hare, heave round, hiccup, hogwash, hokum, honk, hooey, hook, hook in, horn, hot air, hump, hunch, incurvate, incurve, indication, inflect, inhalation, inhalator, inkling, inspiration, insufflation, intimation, intort, inveigle, iron lung, jade, jet plane, jibe, jibe all standing, key, knock out, knock up, light, lightning, lime, lip, load, loop, lure, malarkey, meander, mercury, mesh, miss stays, misshape, moonshine, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, mouthpiece, naught, net, nil, nix, noose, notion, overfatigue, overstrain, overtire, overweary, oxygen mask, oxygen tent, oxygenate, oxygenize, pant, peal, pererrate, piffle, pipe, pirouette, pivot, ply, poop, poop out, poppycock, prime, prostrate, puff, put about, put back, quicksilver, ramble, recurve, reed, reflect, reflex, refresh, respiration, retroflex, revolve, rocket, rot, rotate, round, round a point, rove, sag, scallop, scared rabbit, scat, screw, scuba, serpentine, set, sheer, shift, shit, shot, shriek, sigh, slew, slide, slink, snake, snare, snarl, sneeze, sniff, sniffle, sniggle, snore, snoring, snuff, snuffle, sound, sound a tattoo, sound taps, spin, spiral, spread the toils, squeal, steam up, sternutation, stertor, straggle, stray, streak, streak of lightning, striped snake, suggestion, surround, suspiration, swag, swallow, sweep, swerve, swing, swing round, swing the stern, swirl, swivel, tack, tangle, telltale, thought, throw about, thunderbolt, tire, tire out, tire to death, tommyrot, tongue, toot, tooter, tootle, torrent, torture, trap, trip, tripe, triple-tongue, trumpet, tucker, turn, turn a pirouette, turn around, turn back, turn round, tweedle, twine, twirl, twist, twist and turn, use up, valve, vault, veer, ventilate, wamble, wander, warm up, warp, weaken, wear, wear down, wear on, wear out, wear ship, weary, weave, wheel, wheeze, whirl, whistle, whorl, wilt, wind instrument, wind the horn, wind up, winnow, worm, wreathe, wring, yaw
see Wind

English

Etymology 1

wind. Cognate with Dutch wind, German Wind, Swedish vind, Latin ventus, Welsh gwynt; ultimately probably cognate with weather.

Pronunciation

  • , /ˈwɪnd/, /wInd/
  • Rhymes: -ɪnd

Noun

  1. In the context of "countable|uncountable": Movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure.
    The wind blew through her hair as she stood on the deck of the ship.
    The winds in Chicago are fierce.
  2. The force developed by the movement of air, expressed as pressure.
    As they accelerated onto the motorway, the wind tore the plywood off the car's roof-rack.
  3. The ability to exert oneself without feeling short of breath.
    After the second lap he has already out of wind.
  4. In the context of "India and Japan": One of the five basic elements (see Wikipedia article on the Classical elements).
    Give me a minute before we jog the next mile — I need a second wind.
  5. In the context of "uncountable|colloquial": Flatus.
    Ewww. Someone passed wind.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

movement of air
the force developed by the movement of air
ability to exert oneself without feeling short of breath
  • Hungarian: lélegzet, szufla, szusz
  • Japanese: 息 (iki)
flatus

See also

Verb

  1. To blow air through a wind instrument or horn to make a sound.
  2. To cause (someone) to become breathless, often by a blow to the abdomen.
    The boxer was winded during round two.
  3. To exhaust oneself to the point of being short of breath.
    I can’t run another step — I’m winded.

Translations

blow air through (a wind instrument)
  • Danish: blæse
  • Dutch: blazen
  • Finnish: puhaltaa
  • German: blasen
  • Japanese: 吹く (fuku)
  • Swedish: blåsa
cause (someone) to become breathless
wind oneself: exhaust oneself to the point of being short of breath

Etymology 2

windan

Pronunciation

  • , /waɪnd/, /waInd/
Rhymes with: -aɪnd

Homophones

Verb

  1. To turn coils of (a cord or something similar) around something.
    Please wind up that kite string.
  2. To tighten the spring of the clockwork mechanism such as that of a clock.
    Please wind up that old-fashioned alarm clock.
  3. To travel, or to cause something to travel, in a way that is not straight
    • The river winds through the plain.
    • 1969: Paul McCartney
      The long and winding road / That leads to your door / Will never disappear.

Derived terms

Translations

turn coils of something around
tighten a clockwork mechanism
to travel in a way that is not straight
  • Finnish: kiemurrella, mutkitella (road)
  • Hungarian: kanyarog, kígyózik

Dutch

Etymology

Old Saxon wind.

Pronunciation

Noun

  1. wind i movement of air
    De wind waait door de bomen. — The wind blows through the trees.
  2. flatulence
  3. fart i not informal

Derived terms

Homophones

Old English

Etymology

From Germanic *winda-, *wenda-, from a suffixed form *we-nt- of Indo-European *we- ‘blow, gust’. Germanic cognates include Old Frisian wind, Old Saxon wind (Dutch wind), Old High German wint (German Wind), Old Norse vindr (Swedish vind), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌽𐌳𐍃. The IE root is also the source of Latin ventus (French vent), Welsh gwynt, Tocharian A want, Tocharian B yente.

Pronunciation

  • /wɪnd/

Noun

wind
  1. wind
  2. flatulence
Wind is the flow of air or other gases that compose an atmosphere (including, but not limited to, the Earth's). It occurs as air is heated by the Sun and thus rises. Cool air then rushes to occupy the area from which the hot air has now moved. It could be loosely classed as a convection current.
Winds are commonly classified by their spatial scale, their speed, the types of forces that cause them, the geographic regions in which they occur, and their effect. While wind is often a standalone weather phenomenon, it can also occur as part of a storm system, most notably in a cyclone.
Winds can shape landforms, via a variety of aeolian processes.
In human civilization, wind has inspired mythology, changed the course of history, expanded the range of transport and warfare, and provided a power source for mechanical work, electricity, and recreation.

Forces

Forces which drive wind or affect it are the pressure gradient force, the Coriolis force, buoyancy forces, and friction forces. When a difference in pressure exists between two adjacent air masses, the air tends to flow from the region of high pressure to the region of low pressure. On a rotating planet, flows will be acted upon by the Coriolis force, in regions sufficiently far from the equator and sufficiently high above the surface.
The two major driving factors of large scale global winds are the differential heating between the equator and the poles (difference in absorption of solar energy between these climate zones), and the rotation of the planet.

Components of wind

Winds defined by an equilibrium of physical forces are used in the decomposition and analysis of wind profiles. They are useful for simplifying the atmospheric equations of motion and for making qualitative arguments about the horizontal and vertical distribution of winds. Examples are:

Classification

There are global winds, such as the wind belts which exist between the atmospheric circulation cells. There are upper-level winds which typically include narrow belts of concentrated flow called jet streams. There are synoptic scale winds that result from pressure differences in surface air masses in the middle latitudes, and there are winds that come about as a consequence of geographic features, such as the sea breezes on coastlines or canyon breezes near mountains. Mesoscale winds are those which act on a local scale, such as gust fronts. At the smallest scale are the microscale winds, which blow on a scale of only tens to hundreds of meters and are essentially unpredictable, such as dust devils and microbursts.

Wind terms

Gusts are inconstant winds. Unlike relatively constant winds, such as the Chinook wind, gusting winds are characterized by the apparent rapid change in the force and/or direction of the wind. The wind appears, to those who experience it, to come in blasts of varying strength with brief lulls between. Such a blast is known as a gust.
A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed which usually is associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to an increase in the non-sustained winds over an extended time interval, as there may be lower gusts during a squall event.

Named winds

In modern usage, many local wind systems have their own names.

Local winds

seealso List of local winds
Some local winds blow only under certain circumstances, i.e. they require a certain temperature distribution.
Differential heating is the motive force behind land breezes and sea breezes (or, in the case of larger lakes, lake breezes), also known as on- or off-shore winds. Land absorbs and radiates heat faster than water, but water releases heat over a longer period of time. The result is that, in locations where sea and land meet, heat absorbed over the day will be radiated more quickly by the land at night, cooling the air. Over the sea, heat is still being released into the air at night, which rises. This convective motion draws the cool land air in to replace the rising air, resulting in a land breeze in the late night and early morning. During the day, the roles are reversed. Warm air over the land rises, pulling cool air in from the sea to replace it, giving a sea breeze during the afternoon and evening.
Mountain breezes and valley breezes are due to a combination of differential heating and geometry. When the sun rises, it is the tops of the mountain peaks which receive first light, and as the day progresses, the mountain slopes take on a greater heat load than the valleys. This results in a temperature inequity between the two, and as warm air rises off the slopes, cool air moves up out of the valleys to replace it. This upslope wind is called a valley breeze. The opposite effect takes place in the afternoon, as the valley radiates heat. The peaks, long since cooled, transport air into the valley in a process that is partly gravitational and partly convective and is called a mountain breeze.
Forested areas are less windy than plains and cities because the trees disrupt wind patterns. Trees are defined to have a dampening effect on wind speeds in that they reduce the partial derivative of pressure differences across non-infinitively occupying plain. Further effects of trees wind reducing capabilities is in the fact that trees bend in the wind. Considering the mass of a tree in comparison to air particles it is highly predicable that much of the total energy of the wind is lost in kinetic energy to the trees.
Mountain breezes are one example of what is known more generally as a katabatic wind. These are winds driven by cold air flowing down a slope, and occur on the largest scale in Greenland and Antarctica. Most often, this term refers to winds which form when air which has cooled over a high, cold plateau is set in motion and descends under the influence of gravity. Winds of this type are common in regions of Mongolia and in glaciated locations.
Because katabatic refers specifically to the vertical motion of the wind, this group also includes winds which form on the lee side of mountains, and heat as a consequence of compression. Such winds may undergo a temperature increase of 20 °C (68 °F) or more, and many of the world's "named" winds (see #Named Winds above) belong to this group. Among the most well-known of these winds are the chinook of Western Canada and the American Northwest, the Swiss foehn, California's infamous Santa Ana wind, and the French Mistral.
The opposite of a katabatic wind is an anabatic wind, or an upward-moving wind. The above-described valley breeze is an anabatic wind.
A widely-used term, though one not formally recognised by meteorologists, is orographic wind. This refers to air which undergoes orographic lifting. Most often, this is in the context of winds such as the chinook or the föhn, which undergo lifting by mountain ranges before descending and warming on the lee side.

In civilization

Mythology

see Wind god As a natural force, the wind was often personified as one or more wind gods or as an expression of the supernatural in many cultures.
In ancient Greek mythology, the four winds were personified as gods, called the Anemoi - Boreas, Notos, Euros and Zephyros. Aeolus, in varying interpretations the ruler or keeper of the four winds, has also been described as Astraeus, the god of dusk who fathered the four winds with Eos, goddess of dawn.
The Ancient Greeks also observed the seasonal change of the winds, as evidenced by the Tower of the Winds in Athens.
The winds are discussed in the Bible:

History

Kamikaze (神風) is a Japanese word, usually translated as divine wind, believed to be a gift from the gods. The term is first known to have been used as the name of a pair or series of typhoons that are said to have saved Japan from two Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan that attacked Japan in 1274 and again in 1281.
Protestant Wind is a name for the storm that deterred the Spanish Armada from an invasion of England in 1588 or the favourable winds that enabled William of Orange to invade England in 1688.

Transportation

  • Sailing ship
  • While aircraft usually travel under an internal power source, tail winds affect airspeed, and in the case of hot-air balloons and other lighter-than-air vehicles, wind may play a significant role in their propulsion.

Wind power

see Wind power

Culture

Wind has featured in human cultural works, including art, poetry, music, theatre, novels, films, and television.
'Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Cryst, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!'An anonymous poem The Western Wynde dating from before the 16th century

Recreation

Wind figures prominently in several popular sports, including recreational sailing, windsurfing, and kiteboarding. Finally, wind enables the simple pleasure of flying a kite.

Role in the natural world

Wind has a very important role in aiding plants and other immobile organisms in dispersal of seeds, spores, pollen, etc. Although wind is not the primary form of seed dispersal in plants, it provides dispersal for a large percentage of the biomass of land plants.

The study of wind

The Beaufort wind force scale is an empirical measure for describing wind speed based mainly on observed sea conditions.

Meteorological instruments to measure wind speed and/or direction

Wind direction is reported by the direction from which it originates. For example, a northerly wind blows from the north to the south.
Local sensing techniques:
  • Anemometer (measures wind speed, either directly, e.g. with rotating cups, or indirectly, e.g. via pressure differences or the propagation speed of ultrasound signals)
  • Rawinsonde (GPS-based wind measurement is performed by the probe)
  • Weather balloon (passive measurement, balloon position is tracked from the ground visually or via radar; wind profile is computed from drift rate and the theoretical speed of ascent)
  • Weather vane (used to indicate wind direction)
  • Windsock (primarily used to indicate wind direction, may also be used to estimate wind speed by its angle)
  • Pitot tubes
Remote sensing techniques:

See also

Sources

References

External links

wind in Afrikaans: Wind
wind in Arabic: رياح
wind in Asturian: Vientu
wind in Guarani: Yvytu
wind in Min Nan: Hong
wind in Belarusian (Tarashkevitsa): Вецер
wind in Bosnian: Vjetar
wind in Breton: Avel
wind in Bulgarian: Вятър
wind in Catalan: Vent (meteorologia)
wind in Czech: Vítr
wind in Danish: Vind
wind in German: Wind
wind in Estonian: Tuul
wind in Modern Greek (1453-): Άνεμος
wind in Spanish: Viento
wind in Esperanto: Vento
wind in Basque: Haize
wind in Persian: باد
wind in French: Vent
wind in Scottish Gaelic: Gaoth
wind in Galician: Vento
wind in Korean: 바람
wind in Hindi: पवन
wind in Croatian: Vjetar
wind in Ido: Vento
wind in Indonesian: Angin
wind in Icelandic: Vindur
wind in Italian: Vento
wind in Hebrew: רוח
wind in Swahili (macrolanguage): Upepo
wind in Latin: Ventus
wind in Latvian: Vējš
wind in Lithuanian: Vėjas
wind in Hungarian: Szél
wind in Macedonian: Ветер
wind in Malayalam: കാറ്റ്
wind in Malay (macrolanguage): Angin
wind in Dutch: Wind (meteorologie)
wind in Dutch Low Saxon: Wiend
wind in Newari: फे
wind in Japanese: 風
wind in Norwegian: Vind
wind in Norwegian Nynorsk: Vind
wind in Narom: Vent
wind in Polish: Wiatr
wind in Portuguese: Vento
wind in Romanian: Vânt
wind in Quechua: Wayra
wind in Russian: Ветер
wind in Albanian: Era
wind in Sicilian: Ventu
wind in Simple English: Wind
wind in Slovak: Vietor
wind in Slovenian: Veter
wind in Serbian: Ветар
wind in Serbo-Croatian: Vetar
wind in Finnish: Tuuli
wind in Swedish: Vind
wind in Tagalog: Hangin
wind in Thai: ลม
wind in Vietnamese: Gió
wind in Turkish: Rüzgâr
wind in Ukrainian: Вітер
wind in Walloon: Vint
wind in Yiddish: ווינט
wind in Contenese: 風
wind in Samogitian: Vies
wind in Chinese: 風
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