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WINDY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: windier , windiest
I. (adjective)
Comparative and superlative
Comparative: windier
Superlative: windiest
Sense 1
Meaning:
Abounding in or exposed to the wind or breezes
Example:
a windy bluff
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
stormy ((especially of weather) affected or characterized by storms or commotion)
Derivation:
wind (air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure)
windiness (a mildly windy state of the air)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Using or containing too many words
Example:
proceedings were delayed by wordy disputes
Synonyms:
long-winded; tedious; verbose; windy; wordy
Classified under:
Similar:
prolix (tediously prolonged or tending to speak or write at great length)
Derivation:
wind (empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk)
windiness (boring verbosity)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Resembling the wind in speed, force, or variability
Example:
a windy dash home
Classified under:
Similar:
fast (acting or moving or capable of acting or moving quickly)
Derivation:
wind (air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Not practical or realizable; speculative
Example:
visionary schemes for getting rich
Synonyms:
airy; impractical; Laputan; visionary; windy
Classified under:
Similar:
utopian (characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection)
Context examples:
Of a sudden—or so she thowt, you unnerstand—the day broke, wet and windy, and she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was it as had gone so much amiss?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I shall never forget his flying Henry's kite for him that very windy day last Easter—and ever since his particular kindness last September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o'clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better man in existence.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me, mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his own windy tune, the Death of Nelson; with an Oh! before every line, and innumerable Goroos interspersed.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
