- 1a violent tropical storm in which strong winds move in a circle The cyclone struck the village late last night. compare hurricane, typhoon Wordfinderdisasteravalanche, cyclone, disaster, earthquake, eruption, flood, hurricane, landslide, tornado, tsunami Oxford Collocations Dictionary adjectivetropical cyclone + verbhit something, destroy something, devastate something, … prepositionin a/the cyclone phrasesthe eye of the cyclone See full entry See related entries: Natural disasters, Wind
- 2(specialist) a weather condition in which the pressure of the air becomes lower, often causing wind and rain synonym depression (5) As cyclones move inland, they become an important source of rain. compare anticyclone Word Originmid 19th cent.: probably from Greek kuklōma ‘wheel, coil of a snake’, from kuklos ‘circle’. The change of spelling from -m to -n is unexplained.Extra examples Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Eve, 1974. In 1974 Darwin was devastated by Cyclone Tracy. The islands have been devastated by cyclones in recent months. trees damaged in the cyclone Cyclones are anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere. The island was hit by a cyclone which caused considerable damage.
cyclone
nounBrE BrE//ˈsaɪkləʊn//; NAmE NAmE//ˈsaɪkloʊn//
Natural disasters, WindCheck pronunciation: cyclone
