TEMPEST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tempest mean? 

• TEMPEST (noun)
  The noun TEMPEST has 2 senses:

1. a violent commotion or disturbance

2. (literary) a violent wind

  Familiarity information: TEMPEST used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TEMPEST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A violent commotion or disturbance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

storm; tempest

Context example:

it was only a tempest in a teapot

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

commotion; disruption; disturbance; flutter; hoo-ha; hoo-hah; hurly burly; kerfuffle; to-do (a disorderly outburst or tumult)

Derivation:

tempestuous (characterized by violent emotions or behavior)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(literary) a violent wind

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Context example:

a tempest swept over the island

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

windstorm (a storm consisting of violent winds)

Domain category:

literature (creative writing of recognized artistic value)

Derivation:

tempestuous ((of the elements) as if showing violent anger)

 Context examples 

While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Then without warning the tempest broke.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was nothing but a rock, with one creek naturally arched by the force of tempests.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The discovery of the massive Jovian tempest occurred on Nov. 3, 2019, during the most recent data-gathering flyby of Jupiter by NASA's Juno spacecraft.

(NASA's Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery, NASA)

The tempests, which can grow into bright bands that encircle the entire planet, are on a natural timer that is reset by each subsequent storm.

(Study Explains Saturn's Epic Tantrums, NASA)

There Jo was mistaken, for next day she made a discovery which produced a tempest.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Hour after hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided or she unknowingly fell fast asleep.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down Marmion, and beginning—I soon forgot storm in music.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The words unloosed a tempest.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)