Storm

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /stɔːm/

Definitions

1. A violent weather disturbance with strong winds, rain, thunder, or snow
2. A severe meteorological event involving intense wind and precipitation ; a rapid and forceful physical or verbal attack ; a sudden and noisy disturbance or display of strong emotion
3. An intense atmospheric disturbance with heavy rain or wind ; an aggressive or hurried advance against a target ; a burst of noisy excitement or protest

Etymology: The Old English "storm" was a violent disturbance long before it was a weather event: it described tempests, yes, but also attacks, uproar and a sudden onrush of anything. The Proto-Indo-European root behind it, *(s)twerH-, meant to agitate, stir up or urge on, which is why "stir" is a close relative of this word. The sense of a fierce military assault survives in the Germanic cognates, and it is the same idea that the English noun still carries when troops storm a fortress. The verb has a more surprising trail. Its Middle English form, stormen, originally described wind that blew violently or caused things to roll and toss, and it grew directly from the noun by adding the common verb ending "-en". A separate, older verb, sturmen, meant to attack someone with great force and came from Old English styrman, but it did not survive into modern English. The modern verb, then, comes from the weather sense of the noun rather than from that lost war verb.

Synonyms: tempest, hurricane, thunderstorm, blizzard, squall

Antonyms: calm, peace, tranquility, serenity, stillness