# typhoon

Pronunciation: say "ty-FOON" US /taɪˈfun/, UK /taɪˈfuːn/

## Noun

1. A violent tropical cyclone with rotating winds of 64 knots (119 km/h) or more, especially in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. It is the regional equivalent of an Atlantic hurricane or an Indian Ocean cyclone.
   - Simple: A very strong tropical storm with violent spinning winds, especially in the western Pacific and around East Asia.
   - _Forecasters upgraded the tropical storm to a typhoon as it crossed the warm waters east of Taiwan._
   - _Had it formed in the Atlantic, the same typhoon would have been called a hurricane._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To swirl or whirl violently, the way a hurricane does.

## Origin

First used in English in 1588 (spelled Touffon) for a giant storm in Asian seas, from Portuguese tufão, which sailors likely took from Arabic ṭūfān. The Arabic word's own origin is uncertain: it is sometimes traced to Chinese “big wind,” but it may be a native Arabic root about wind circling around, or come from Greek. Over time the English spelling was influenced by Greek tuphôn, “whirlwind,” the name also of Typhon, father of destructive storm winds.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/typhoon (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).