breeze

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“
The silence preceding it had been intense, for the breeze was as yet too light to make more than the faintest sighing music, and in the gathering darkness this abrupt and gloomy noise produced, I supposed, by some hidden nomad, made a very unpleasant, even sinister impression upon me.

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Definitions (28)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun A light current of air; a gentle wind.
  2. noun Any of five winds with speeds of from 4 to 31 miles (6 to 50 kilometers) per hour, according to the Beaufort scale.
  3. noun Informal Something, such as a task, that is easy to do.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (12)

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Examples (50)

  • Then he settled in to watch and wait 18 The air was cold and seventy feet above ground the breeze was a wind. —  Without Fail by Lee Child
  • The sun was shinning bright and the breeze was actually warm. —  Garwood, Julie - The Secret
  • He and Challenger flew across his lands purely because they could, and wanted to Perhaps needed to The sun shone down; the breeze was a mere wisp of sensation. —  Stephanie Laurens - A Fine Passion
  • Up as high as that, the breeze was a cool breeze and not something out of a blast furnance. —  The Fabulous Clipjoint
  • It's been a while since I've done any childbirth ed posts, and one that was kind of left swinging in the breeze was the Stages of Labor. —  Feeds4all documents in category 'SEO'
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

wind ·  gale ·  rain ·  sunshine ·  mist ·  weather ·  warmth ·  breath ·  tide ·  chill ·  sky ·  sun

Used in the same contextWord Family

breeze:   breezes
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Perhaps from Old Spanish briza, northeast wind.
  2. Probably from French braise, hot coals, from Old French brese, of Germanic origin; see bhreu- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. Also written breese, early modern English brize, brizze, brise, briese, from Middle English brese, from Anglo-Saxon breósa, briósa (only in glosses), a gadfly; not found in other tongues, and supposed to be an irreg. reduction of *brimsa (also cited as Anglo-Saxon, but not well authorized: see brimse, brimsey) = Middle Dutch bremse, Dutch brems = Old High German brimissa, Middle High German brimse, Germanbremse = Old Danish brimse, bremse, Danish bremse = Swedish broms, a horsefly; also (without the formative -s) bream = Old High German bremo, Middle High German G. breme, Middle Dutch bremme (see bream); so named, perhaps, from its buzzing: cf. Anglo-Saxon bremman, roar, Old High German breman, Middle High German bremen, roar, buzz, Middle High German G. brummen, Dutch brommen, hum, buzz, grumble, Latin fremere, roar: see brim. Cf. Sanskrit bhramara, a large black bee, perhaps from the same root.
  2. from breeze, n.
  3. Early modern English also brize, briess; = German brise = Danish bris, from French brize, now brise, a breeze, = Spanish brisa = Portuguese briza, the northeast wind; cf. Italian brezza, a cold wind; possibly same as bise, q. v., with intrusive -r.
  4. = English dial. briss (q. v.), dust, rubbish, from French bris, rubbish, fragments, breakage, etc., from briser, break: see bruise and brazil, and cf. debris. But in sense 2 perhaps from Old French brese, cinders, orig. live coals, French braise, live coals: see braise.
 

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