Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A dry dusty wind that blows along the northwest coast of Africa.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An intensely dry land-wind felt on the coast of Africa between Cape Verd and Cape Lopez. It prevails at intervals during December, January, and February, and is charged with a thick dust which obscures the sun; it withers vegetation and dries up the skin of the human body. During the prevalence of the harmattan the middle of the day is characterized by great heat, while the nights are unusually cool. Also spelled
hermitan .
Wiktionary
- n. Parching dust-bearing land-wind on coast of Upper Guinea in December, January & February.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A dry, hot wind, prevailing on the Atlantic coast of Africa, in December, January, and February, blowing from the interior or Sahara. It is usually accompanied by a haze which obscures the sun.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dusty wind from the Sahara that blows toward the western coast of Africa during the winter
Etymologies
- This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology. (Wiktionary)
- Akan (Twi) haramata, possibly from Arabic ḥarām, evil thing, from ḥarama, to prohibit; see ḥrm in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The harmattan, which is caused by shifting weather patterns, derives its name from the word for 'tears your breath apart' in the West African language Twi...”
“As if to presage that there is a new dawn in the world, with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the strong winds coming from the Sub-Sahara have manifested themselves in the form of what Ghana typically knows as the harmattan season.”
“During the dry season, a strong wind called the harmattan blows from the Sahara across West Africa.”
“After leaving the city and its suburbs and crossing the point of the cape to Simon Town, where is located the naval station and a more secure anchorage, one passes over deserts of sand over which a wind called the "harmattan" blows with great force and fury, obliging one to veil the face to protect the eyes from the refraction of the sun's rays as well as the sand.”
“Am I the only one that had to look up the definition of “harmattan”?”
“But now the thunderstorm scrubs the air clear of any lingering harmattan grime leaving a sparkling blue sky with white puffy clouds and an astonishingly green and vibrant landscape whose existence I had almost forgotten about under the dust.”
“The downpour wipes away the layer of dust plastered on everything by the dry harmattan winds that blown down from the parched Sahel during the peak of the dry season.”
“The south end of the range experiences the southwesterly monsoon from the ocean and the north end dry northeasterly harmattan winds from the desert.”
“It was a very African lesson for The Visitor to learn that winter, as the arid harmattan winds blowing south from the Sahara pushed the wet monsoon out into the sea.”
“Natural Hazards: dry, sand-laden harmattan winds blow from the Sahara (December to February); sandstorms, dust storms”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘harmattan’.
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wind names
yet another list like this.
abroholos, alizé, amihan, habagat, barguzin wind, bayamo, bergwind, bise, bora, brickfielder, brisa, brisote and 93 more...
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250 Extra Spelling Words
Some more words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
cultellarius, barouche, palanquin, badelaire, cavetto, tregetour, tergiversate, rhododendron, rhadamanthine, thyrsus, cappelletti, bradycardia and 238 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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winds of the world
local wind names
chinook, foehn, gallego, sirocco, harmattan, fremantle doctor, tramontane, mistral, santa ana, diablo, descuernacabras, dust devil and 119 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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When I'm Feeling Windy
wiiiiiiiind
sirocco, zephyr, fiat, tramontana, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane, haboob, khamsin, aajej, africo, alm and 125 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2014 more...
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foreign affairs
abacost, abra, zamindar, wampum, chobdar, chota-hazri, chandoo, dacoit, Devanagari, dewan, gen-gen, gharry and 87 more...
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Things / Objects / Minor
ocelot, tesserae, ukulele, favela, usquebaugh, aquarium, ayahuasca, curandero, habitué, atelier, soubrette, Zelig and 13 more...
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And thus on to the conclusion
I used to do this in a Word document, but now I'm doing it in Wordie.
vis a tergo, harmattan, simoom, dionaea, albata, paktong, scagliola, ignis fatuus, brummagem, taciturn, borborygmus, graustark and 7 more...
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These are permanent winds that live i...
being the names of desert winds, including but not limited to those described in 'The English Patient,' and of Levantine winds.
sirocco, ghibli, khamsin, aajej, africo, alm, arifi, aeref, rifi, bist roz, haboob, harmattan and 12 more...
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free rice
trepang, wain, stenosis, biltong, ablaut, ostler, gorgerin, qindar, hyson, gynoecium, traduce, blenny and 49 more...
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boxing the compass
Names of winds, especially exotic, traditional and "non-English" names.
zephyr, simoom, tramontana, mistral, typhoon, maelstrom, gale, hurricane, chinook, monsoon, tradewind, doldrums and 14 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for harmattan.
knitandpurl "The noonday sun could send temperatures soaring to a hundred and fifteen degrees and a hot harmattan wind blew down from the desert."
- "The Great Oasis" by Burkhard Bilger, p 116 of the December 19 & 26, 2011 issue of the New Yorker
Jan 1, 2012
chained_bear "'...they tell me that the dry season is at hand, when the air, though hotter by far on occasion, is perfectly dry... Dry, and sometimes accompanied by an interesting wind, the harmattan; though that may also be the name of the season itself...'"
--P. O'Brian, The Commodore, 207 Mar 17, 2008