squall

present singular third person squalls · participle present squalling · participle past squalled · past squalled

1. To cry or wail loudly.

   The orchestra burst into a sudden loud squalling.

   1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC

   5 more examples

   Sow ran and squall'd, While Jack he bawl'd, And Jill join'd in the choir, Dog Ball being near, Bit sow by the ear, And threw Jack into the mire.

   1810, Jack and Jill, and old Dame Gill, York: J. Kendrew, page 12

   Squalling was the word for it, Pew's anger rose so high at these objections; till at last, his passion completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them right and left in his blindness, and his stick sounded heavily on more than one.

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

   Squalling like an infuriated cat, the shadow crashed down

   1916, Jack London, The Red One

   Some night-bird, belike, or a sea-gull squalling below the headland.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 39

   she wrapped the squalling, wriggling baby tightly into the fine cotton sheet

   1998, Anne McCafferey, Masterharper of Pern

2. To fall suddenly and forcefully, as if a squall.

   Rain squalled in heavy sheets across the street.

   2015 10, Cindy Williams, The Pounamu Prophecy, Rhiza Press, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   […] rain squalled fretfully against the schoolhouse roof. Although it had stopped by the time the afternoon recess was due, Miss Willie decided that it was too cold and raw for the children to be out a full half hour, so she sent them[…]

   1994 September 1, Janice Holt Giles, Miss Willie, University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 165

   […] of squalling rain and a blustering westerly wind.

   2009 March 1, Helen Hollick, Kingmaking: Book One of the Pendragon's Banner Trilogy, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN, page 5

   Rain squalled sudden against the window. The Old Writer cursed and shouldered out the door.

   2012 July 31, A. William James, Book Thirteen, eBook Partnership, →ISBN

   […] the sky opened up into a cloud-burst of squalling rain.

   2018 May 30, Allan W. Waddy, Buckshot & Johnnycakes, FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 18

plural squalls

1. oftennauticalA sudden, windy storm, such as is found in a squall line.

   Luckily she wasn’t there any more, no one was, when he returned from the Caribbean carnival damp-hatted and soaked through after being caught unprepared by a squall of hard, hot rain.

   2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 5

   2 more examples

   Christian Bergh began shipbuilding in 1804 with the ship North America, of four hundred tons, built for the Atlantic trade, and the brig Gipsey, of three hundred tons, a very sharp vessel for those days. She was dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope upon her first voyage to Batavia, and afterwards foundered in a heavy squall, all hands being lost.

   1911, Arthur Hamilton Clark, The Clipper Ship Era 1843-1869, Chapter 1

   With reports of the Japanese forces bearing down on them confirmed, Rear Admiral Sprague orders his ships east, heading towards a series of rain squalls, hoping for concealment. This will hopefully delay the Japanese closing the range, and also draw them away from the much-more-vulnerable landing ships.

   2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 10:57 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2022

2. climatologyA squall line, multicell line, or part of a squall line.
3. A loud cry or wail.

   The media present rising prices as a passing squall for the middle class, brought on by Vlad ’n’ Liz and resulting in spiking mortgage rates and fewer trips to Waitrose. But beneath those headlines are millions of others for whom the problem isn’t rising prices, but falling incomes.

   2023 August 17, Aditya Chakrabortty, “Can’t pay and they really do take it away: what happens when the bailiffs come knocking”, in The Guardian

   1 more example

   But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk’s head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing up the rear with music.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 34, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 163