tempest

plural tempests

1. A storm, especially one with severe winds.

   As every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of the Pacific is far different from a tempest in the howling North Atlantic.

   1847, Herman Melville, chapter 16, in Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas

   3 more examples

   For a Tempeſt. Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auſter and Boreas, and caſt them together in one Verſe. Add to theſe of Rain, Lightning, and of Thunder (the loudeſt you can) quantum ſufficit. Mix your Clouds and Billows well together till they foam, and thicken your Deſcription here and there with a Quickſand. Brew your Tempeſt well in your Head, before you ſet it a blowing.

   1714 June 10, [Alexander Pope], The Guardian, volume I, number 78, London: Printed for J[acob] Tonson, at Shakespear's-Head over-against Catherine-street in the Strand, page 332

   BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas blow; / Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof; / Your incivility doth ſhow, / That innocence is tempeſt proof; / Though ſurly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; / Then ſtrike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm. [Attributed to Roger L'Estrange (1616–1704).]

   1781, [Mostyn John Armstrong], History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk. Volume IX. Containing the Hundreds of Smithdon, Taverham, Tunstead, Walsham, and Wayland, volume IX, Norwich: Printed by J. Crouse, for M. Booth, bookseller, →OCLC, page 51

   The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.

   1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid

2. Any violent tumult or commotion.

   Comforted with these reflections, the tempest of his soul subsided

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   They awaited the word "forward"—awaited, too, with beating hearts and set teeth the gusts of lead and iron that were to smite them at their first movement in obedience to that word. The word was not given; the tempest did not break out.

   1914, Ambrose Bierce, One Officer, One Man

3. obsoleteA fashionable social gathering; a drum.

present singular third person tempests · participle present tempesting · participle past tempested · past tempested

1. intransitiverareTo storm.
2. poetictransitiveTo disturb, as by a tempest.

   Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve, And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air.

   1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Drowned Lover,”, in Poems from St. Irvyne

   1 more example

   . . . the seal And bended dolphins play; part huge of bulk, Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

plural Tempests

1. A surname transferred from the nickname.