gusty

comparative gustier · superlative gustiest

1. Of wind: blowing in gusts; blustery; tempestuous.

   The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, / The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, / The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, / And the highwayman came riding— / Riding—riding— / The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

   1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza I, page 45

2. figurativelyCharacterized by or occurring in instances of sudden strong expression.

   'No, no, no,' she said. 'Who could be disloyal to you, Miss?' And then the gusty tears came.

   2012, Adam Roberts, Jack Glass

   2 more examples

   A change evidently came over the countess's thoughts; her thin lips grew white (her eyes remained the same), and her voice when she spoke evidently surprised even herself by the violence of its gusty outburst.

   1898, Leo Tolstoy (Nathan Haskell Dole, trans.), War and peace, page 103

   The spirit becomes an ingrained part of one's life, not subject to gusty moods and feelings, but a habitual part of life.

   2016, Robert Ellwood, Introducing Religion

3. figurativelyBombastic, verbose.

   “I am a man of few words,” shouted a red-necked House member as he started his second hour of a gusty speech.

   1966, Jacob Morton Braude, Speech openers and closers - Volumes 1-4, page 53

   3 more examples

   From the vigorous, warm, gusty oratory of the Gallican apologists, we pass into a thinner and cooler and quieter atmosphere, that of the Spanish lecture-room.

   1987, Owen Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman, page 21

   Kingsley came back again, Leonard countered his reply, and so it went on, with personal insults buried in paragraphs of gusty rhetoric.

   2006, Victoria Glendinning, Leonard Woolf: A Biography, page 355

   Back then, it was the conservative backlash to canon reformation that blew hot with the gusty rhetoric of politics.

   2010, Henry Louis Gates, Tradition and the Black Atlantic

comparative gustier · superlative gustiest

1. With gusto.

   I give her a gusty wink.

   2004, John Cottle, The Blessings of Hard-used Angels, page 152

   4 more examples

   His lips, warm with his words, caught hers in a gusty kiss.

   1917, The Green Book Magazine - Volume 18, page 486

   The prime aim of the Bondo dormitory is selection of marriage partners and they are free to have sexual experiences, but not, of course, intercourse, which the boys call with a gusty smile "breast play".

   2007, Prakash Chandra Mehta, Sonu Mehta, Cultural Heritage of Indian Tribes, page 31

   She laughed, a gusty laugh, one that lit up her entire face and told you that she found fun in most situations.

   2009, Deni Bash Hoffman, All's Fair in Love and Mystery, page 48

   And so did his lordship as he stood and praised her performance, his beard scratching a gusty kiss on her cheek while handing her the winners' trophy in our behalf.

   2012, Irene Hope-Hedrick, 'Twill Be All Right Come Mornin', Luv, page 32