| / English Dictionary |
GUST
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A strong current of air
Example:
the tree was bent almost double by the gust
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural phenomena
Hypernyms ("gust" 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 "gust"):
bluster (a violent gusty wind)
sandblast (a blast of wind laden with sand)
puff; puff of air; whiff (a short light gust of air)
Derivation:
gusty (blowing in puffs or short intermittent blasts)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Present simple (first person singular and plural, second person singular and plural, third person plural) of the verb gust
Context examples:
The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hour later, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us, picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find for it.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains—and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Blaize Castle remained her only comfort; towards that, she still looked at intervals with pleasure; though rather than be disappointed of the promised walk, and especially rather than be thought ill of by the Tilneys, she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply—the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms, exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture, though now for many years deserted—the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even of having their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sudden gust of wind, and of being left in total darkness.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful—And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As he spoke, there sounded high above the shriek of the gale and the straining of the timbers a gust of oaths with a roar of deep-chested mirth from the gamblers in the forecastle.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The skin roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, I had thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and innumerable interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud had supposed, disclosed themselves.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
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