Etymology

derecho

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Today it means: A windstorm characterized by damaging, straight-line winds, composed of one or more bowing lines of thunderstorms. Full definition →

Spanish derecho
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The story

  1. Spanish · learned borrowing fromderecho“straight”
  2. English todayderecho

Learned borrowing from Spanish derecho (“straight”). First used by Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs in 1888, apparently coined to distinguish the winds from tornadoes, which rotate; compare tornado. Doublet of direct.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.