GALE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gale mean? 

• GALE (noun)
  The noun GALE has 1 sense:

1. a strong wind moving 45-90 knots; force 7 to 10 on Beaufort scale

  Familiarity information: GALE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GALE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A strong wind moving 45-90 knots; force 7 to 10 on Beaufort scale

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("gale" is a kind of...):

air current; current of air; wind (air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gale"):

moderate gale; near gale (wind moving 32-38 knots; 7 on the Beaufort scale)

fresh gale (wind moving 39-46 knots; 8 on the Beaufort scale)

strong gale (wind moving 47-54 knots; 9 on the Beaufort scale)

whole gale (wind moving 55-63 knots; 10 on the Beaufort scale)

 Context examples 

Gale followed gale, with snow and sleet and rain.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The autumn of that year was a stormy one, and there was a long succession of southerly gales.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Gale Crater is the ancient remnant of a massive impact.

(NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds an Ancient Oasis on Mars, NASA)

It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

On the spur of the moment it reminded him of a gale he had once experienced in the North Pacific.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But a day passed, and a second, and on the third a wild gale blew, and there was no Keesh.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)