sirocco

• siroc (rare)
• scirocco

From Italian scirocco (“south-east wind”), from Andalusian Arabic شَلُوق‎ (šalūq).

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈɹɒkoʊ/

sirocco (plural siroccos)

1. A hot and often strong southerly to southeasterly wind on the Mediterranean that originates in the Sahara and adjacent North African regions.

   Synonym: ghibli (Libya)

   • 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist 1'

     This tolerance and largeur of the heart that 'forgives' everything because it 'understands' everything, is sirocco for us.

   • 1814 George Gordon, Lord Byron Corsair, i:14

     But come, the board is spread ; our silver lamp / Is trimm'd, and heeds not the sirocco's damp.

2. A draft of hot air from an artificial source of heat.
   • (colloquial) 2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Random House, →ISBN, page 113:

     In the hearth at the north wall a large fire cracked and lisped, flushing the room with a dry sirocco that caused frozen skin to tingle.

• 1896 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, vol 4 p 4286

• sirocco on Wikipedia.Wikipedia