The Collaborative International Dictionary
Storm \Storm\, n. [AS. storm; akin to D. storm, G. sturm, Icel. stormr; and perhaps to Gr. ? assault, onset, Skr. s? to flow, to hasten, or perhaps to L. sternere to strew, prostrate (cf. Stratum). [root]166.]
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A violent disturbance of the atmosphere, attended by wind, rain, snow, hail, or thunder and lightning; hence, often, a heavy fall of rain, snow, or hail, whether accompanied with wind or not.
We hear this fearful tempest sing, Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm.
--Shak. -
A violent agitation of human society; a civil, political, or domestic commotion; sedition, insurrection, or war; violent outbreak; clamor; tumult.
I will stir up in England some black storm.
--Shak.Her sister Began to scold and raise up such a storm.
--Shak. -
A heavy shower or fall, any adverse outburst of tumultuous force; violence.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate.
--Pope. -
(Mil.) A violent assault on a fortified place; a furious attempt of troops to enter and take a fortified place by scaling the walls, forcing the gates, or the like.
Note: Storm is often used in the formation of self-explained compounds; as, storm-presaging, stormproof, storm-tossed, and the like.
Anticyclonic storm (Meteor.), a storm characterized by a central area of high atmospheric pressure, and having a system of winds blowing spirally outward in a direction contrary to that cyclonic storms. It is attended by low temperature, dry air, infrequent precipitation, and often by clear sky. Called also high-area storm, anticyclone. When attended by high winds, snow, and freezing temperatures such storms have various local names, as blizzard, wet norther, purga, buran, etc.
Cyclonic storm. (Meteor.) A cyclone, or low-area storm. See Cyclone, above.
Magnetic storm. See under Magnetic.
Storm-and-stress period [a translation of G. sturm und drang periode], a designation given to the literary agitation and revolutionary development in Germany under the lead of Goethe and Schiller in the latter part of the 18th century.
Storm center (Meteorol.), the center of the area covered by a storm, especially by a storm of large extent.
Storm door (Arch.), an extra outside door to prevent the entrance of wind, cold, rain, etc.; -- usually removed in summer.
Storm path (Meteorol.), the course over which a storm, or storm center, travels.
Storm petrel. (Zo["o]l.) See Stormy petrel, under Petrel.
Storm sail (Naut.), any one of a number of strong, heavy sails that are bent and set in stormy weather.
Storm scud. See the Note under Cloud.
Syn: Tempest; violence; agitation; calamity.
Usage: Storm, Tempest. Storm is violent agitation, a commotion of the elements by wind, etc., but not necessarily implying the fall of anything from the clouds. Hence, to call a mere fall or rain without wind a storm is a departure from the true sense of the word. A tempest is a sudden and violent storm, such as those common on the coast of Italy, where the term originated, and is usually attended by a heavy rain, with lightning and thunder.
Storms beat, and rolls the main; O! beat those storms, and roll the seas, in vain.
--Pope.What at first was called a gust, the same Hath now a storm's, anon a tempest's name.
--Donne.
Wiktionary
n. A fine blizzard of snow in Russia.
Wikipedia
Purga may refer to:
- Purga, Estonia
- Purga, Queensland
- Purga, Slovenia
- The Siberian subtype of the buran wind of the Asian interior
Usage examples of "purga".
Purga sensed, deep down, that the day would come when her daughter would see her not as a foraging companion, not even as a hindrance, but as a resource.
The volcano-damaged vegetation had provided poor fodder for the ankylosaurs, and what came out the other end was of little value to Purga.
Herds had gathered around this shallow lake, a bewildering, brightly colored array of them, and Purga and Second had to creep past forests of their great, immobile legs, like refugees in an immense sculpture park.
And yet they were here: And yet here was Ultimate, the latest link in a great chain that now passed back through a hundred million grandmothers, morphing and changing, loving and dying, back to Purga herself, and into the formlessness of the still deeper past beyond.
Purga was born, an ornitholestes stalked through the dense Jurassic forest, hunting diplodocus.
Purga and Last were here, and other mammals, little ratlike creatures that had kept themselves alive in their underground burrows, warmed through this long winter by their constant body heat.
So the primates dug, building burrows in which Purga would have felt comfortable.
To Purga the dinosaurs were a force of nature, as beyond her control as the weather.
Moving cautiously, watchfully, Purga left the shelter of the fern, and scurried across the scrubby floodplain, through the devastated track left by the anatotitan herd, until she reached the security of the trees.
Purga, who had scurried past slumbering dinosaurs by the light of a comet.
The people cowered, an ancient reflex that dated back to the days when Purga had huddled in her burrow.
As the minds of the primates became steadily more elaborate, it was as if a sense of self was diffusing outward, from the solitary Purga to her increasingly social descendants.
At last, as the ruddy sun rose above the horizon, Purga managed to dig out a hole big enough to shelter her body.
These little primates were plesiadapids: all but identical to Purga, even though she had died more than fourteen million years before.