tornado

CEFRB1

/tɔː(ɹ)ˈneɪ.dəʊ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A violently spinning column of air reaching from a storm to the ground.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    To sweep through something violently.

Examples

  • The tornado touched down two kilometers from my school.

  • There was a tornado in the village.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
3
Parts of speech
1
Citations
4
Synonyms
1

Also pronounced

  • /tɔɹˈneɪ.doʊ/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meaning

  1. A violent wind in the form of a mobile, rapidly rotating, funnel cloud that has contacted the ground.

More examples

In context

  • The tornado destroyed the whole village.

  • An extreme version of vorticity is a vortex. The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain, as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.

  • They come every night, those cavernous trains, tornadoing the frozen house, a madness feeling for the door.

Synonyms

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Nearby

Origin

noun

From earlier English ternado, attested since the 1550s as a nautical term for a windy thunderstorm. From Spanish tronada (“thunderstorm”), from tronar (“to thunder”), from Latin tonō (“to thunder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”). The o and r were reversed in English (metathesis) under influence of Spanish tornar (“to twist, to turn”), from Latin tornō (“to turn”).