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Waterspout   Listen
noun
Waterspout  n.  A remarkable meteorological phenomenon, of the nature of a tornado or whirlwind, usually observed over the sea, but sometimes over the land. Note: Tall columns, apparently of cloud, and reaching from the sea to the clouds, are seen moving along, often several at once, sometimes straight and vertical, at other times inclined and tortuous, but always in rapid rotation. At their bases, the sea is violently agitated and heaped up with a leaping or boiling motion, water, at least in some cases, being actually carried up in considerable quantity, and scattered round from a great height, as solid bodies are by tornadoes on land.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waterspout" Quotes from Famous Books



... Columbiad was accompanied by a veritable earthquake. Florida was shaken to its very depths. The gases of the powder, expanded by heat, forced back the atmospheric strata with tremendous violence, passing like a waterspout through the air. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... direction at a sharp run, carrying no balls, for they intended to make them on the scene of operation. When the other two divisions were off, Speug addressed his faithful band. "MacFarlane, take six birkies, climb up the waterspout, and clean the richt-hand shed, couping the Pennies into the street. Mackenzie, ye're no bad at the fightin'; tak' anither sax and empty the roof o' the left-hand shed, and 'gin ye can clout that Penny that's sittin' on the riggin' it'll teach him to keep ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... limits of the tropics, another class of spinning storms, known as waterspouts, may often be observed. In general appearance these air whirls resemble tornadoes, except that they are in all cases smaller than that group of whirlings. As in the tornadoes, the waterspout begins with a funnel, which descends from the sky to the surface of the sea. Up the tube vapours may be seen ascending at great speed, the whole appearing like a gigantic pillar of swiftly revolving smoke. When the whirl reaches the water, it is said that the fluid leaps up ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were aging people now. It seemed to him that they were the wraiths of those persons who had loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen Zoraida do ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... forced themselves on his mind. The "House of Pieterse" appeared to his mind's eye as a menacing waterspout. In the face of this danger difficult questions that had been clamoring for answer had ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli


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