Levante

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A strong, hot wind that typically blows from the east in the Mediterranean region
2. a term used to describe local breezes that can affect maritime conditions
3. also refers to an uplift or rise in geographic or geological contexts

Etymology: In Spanish and Italian, "levante" means "rising," the place where the sun comes up, and so it also means the east. It comes from Latin "levare," "to raise," which also gave English "lever" and "elevate." Directions were named after the sun's rising, and the wind took its name from the direction it blows from. The hot wind is a warm easterly on Spain's Mediterranean coast, and it is named for the sunrise side of the sky it arrives from. The term describes the wind's direction, not its temperature, which is why the name is shared with the plain word for east. English borrowed the Italian form as "Levant," used for the lands east of the Mediterranean that Italian merchant ships traded with. The eastern sense and the wind sense come from the same direction.

Synonyms: east wind, easterly

Antonyms: poniente, west wind