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Sirocco   Listen
noun
Sirocco  n.  (pl. siroccos)  
1.
An oppressive, relaxing wind from the Libyan deserts, chiefly experienced in Italy, Malta, and Sicily.
2.
In general, any hot dry wind of cyclonic origin, blowing from arid or heated regions, including the desert wind of Southern California, the harmattan of the west coasts of Africa, the hot winds of Kansas and Texas, the kamsin of Egypt, the leste of the Madeira Islands, and the leveche of Spain.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sirocco" Quotes from Famous Books



... a very remarkable feature in the climate of this settlement. They are excessively violent, sometimes shaking the very house; hot, dry, from having already poured out their moisture, and enervating like the Italian sirocco. The fact seems to be, that the nor'-west winds come heated from the tropics, and charged with moisture from the ocean, and this is precipitated by the ice-fields of the mountains in deluges of rain, chiefly on the western side, but occasionally extending some ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... wet winters with hot, dry summers along coast; drier with cold winters and hot summers on high plateau; sirocco is a hot, dust/sand-laden ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... half-dream, mixed of burning and breeze,—and discovered old Karlee, my pearl of bhearers,[4] waiting in still patience on the outside of the tent-like mosquito curtain, punka in hand, and tenderly waving a balmy blessing across the sirocco-plagued sand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... needs defence. She has acted always with the greatest kindness to me and to us. You have no right to suppose that she says unkind things of you when you are not present. I cannot imagine what has come over you to-day. It must be the weather. It is sirocco." ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... modified by the mineral structure. Earthquake waves seem to move more rapidly through the comparatively undisturbed beds of the Mississippi Valley than through the contorted strata of Europe. Meteorology is unable to indicate a coming earthquake, for there is no sure prophecy in sultry weather, sirocco wind, and leaden sky. The Lisbon shock came without a warning. Sudden changes of the weather, however, often occur after an earthquake. Since the great convulsion of 1797 the climate of the Valley of Quito ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... to her! She waits for me. Has destiny thrown us together without design? Ought I not to be her consolation, and ought she not to be my repose? Life is not a sport. It does not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert, which the sirocco whirls together and then asunder. We should hold fast the souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us, and no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to struggle, and to die for them. She would ...
— Memories • Max Muller

... sleep, dazed, motionless, with a quartz-like transparence, and myriads of rays fell upon the water as if arrow-points had pricked it, making a dazzling reflection, doubled in intensity by the whiteness of the cliffs and the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the dust in a spiral column as the carriage passed. They reached the hottest, the most sheltered portions of the Corniche,—a genuinely tropical temperature, where dates, cactus, the aloe, with its tall, candelabra-like branches, grow in the fields. When he saw those slender trunks, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... The sirocco, a wind that depresses even people without nerves, was blowing and melting the ice. The streets and roads were transformed into pools of half-congealed mud. He was somewhat "out of spirits." But still ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... confined breath of such a concourse. On approaching the stair-case, if the orchestra be silent, the entrance of these regions of harmony is announced by a heat which can be compared only to the true Sirocco blast such as ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... a morning I am always sullen, and to-day is as sombre as myself. Rain and mist are worse than a sirocco, particularly in a beef-eating and beer-drinking country. My bookseller, Cawthorne, has just left me, and tells me, with a most important face, that he is in treaty for a novel of Madame D'Arblay's, for which 1000 guineas are asked! [7] He wants me to read the MS. (if he obtains ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... is a native of Southern Europe, growing all the way from Southern Spain to the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor. In its native habitat it has become accustomed to the hot winds that often sweep across the Mediteranean, the burning sirocco of the Great Sahara. The dwarf mountain pine, Pinus Montana, grows in the Pyrenees, in the Alps, in the Carpathians and in the Balkan Mountains, so that it, too, often encounters the hot winds that come across from the African deserts. It is probable that the ability of ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... who had to swelter and toil in the stokehole it must have been very trying, though compared with what was yet to come this was a mere bagatelle. We had encountered that blasting wind known as the "sirocco"—the scourge of the Mediterranean—which after gathering force and heat in the African deserts comes with its fiery and sand-laden breath to sap the moisture from all who have not the natures of salamanders. Fortunately we soon passed ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... that could not be dispensed with. I had just made use of one for the Vatican sculpture collection, one day, when I felt very unwell. I ascribed my sensations at first to the insufferable weather of that month, alternately sirocco and cold sleet, or both at once; then I was seized with a dread of the climate, of Rome, of all these strange surroundings, and I made up my mind to go home as quickly as possible. The illness that was upon me was, without my knowing it, the cause of my fear. The next day I was ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... bore in a narrative, for the very reason that he is a bore. A tale must aim at condensation, but a bore acts in solution. It is only on the long-run that he is ascertained. Then, indeed, he is felt; he is oppressive; like the sirocco, which the native detects at once, while a foreigner is often at fault. Tenet occiditque. Did you hear him make but one speech, perhaps you would say he was a pleasant, well-informed man; but when he never ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... Mediterranean region—I refer to the western basin—is in climate. There is hardly any point along the French and Italian coast that is not subject to great and sudden changes, caused by the north wind, which has many names, or in the extreme southern peninsula and islands by the sirocco. There are few points that are not reached by malaria, and in many resorts—and some of them most sunny and agreeable to the invalid—the deadliest fevers always lie in wait. There is great contrast between summer and winter, ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... is not a tonic medicine, and it seldom suffers exercise to be all exhilarating. It has always seemed to me indeed part of the charm of the latter that your keenest consciousness is haunted with a vague languor. Occasionally when the sirocco blows that sensation becomes strange and exquisite. Then, under the grey sky, before the dim distances which the south-wind mostly brings with it, you seem to ride forth into a world from which all hope has departed and in which, in spite of the flowers that make your horse's ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James



Words linked to "Sirocco" :   windstorm, sandstorm, dust storm



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