derecho n.
1888 in reference to winds generated convectively from a downburst cluster, from American Spanish derecho "
When, years ago, I first called public attention to this kind of straight blows peculiar to Iowa prairies in summer, I named them provisorily Iowa squalls. The term derecho, coined from the Spanish in analogy with the term tornado, and expressing the main feature of a straight blow, has been chosen to bring out the contrast with the tornado or whirl-wind to avoid further confusion of these two different storms. [Gustavus Hinrichs, "Tornadoes in Iowa," in Report of the Iowa Weather Service for the Year 1888]
Entries linking to derecho
word-forming element of Latin origin meaning 1. "
The Latin prefix is from PIE *dis- "
In classical Latin, dis- paralleled de- and had much the same meaning, but in Late Latin dis- came to be the favored form and this passed into Old French as des-, the form used for compound words formed in Old French, where it increasingly had a privative sense ("
As a living prefix in English, it reverses or negatives what it is affixed to. Sometimes, as in Italian, it is reduced to s- (as in spend, splay, sport, sdain for disdain, and the surnames Spencer and Spence).
updated on July 29, 2018