weather

From Middle English weder, wedir, from Old English weder, from Proto-Germanic *wedrą, from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰrom (=*we-dʰrom), from *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Weeder, West Frisian waar, Dutch weer, Low German Weder, German Wetter, Danish vejr, Swedish väder, Norwegian Bokmål vær, Norwegian Nynorsk vêr, Icelandic veður; also more distantly related to Russian вёдро (vjodro, “fair weather”) and perhaps Albanian vrëndë (“light rain”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛðə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛðɚ/

• Audio (GA)

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• Rhymes: -ɛðə(r)
• Homophones: wether, whether (in accents with the wine-whine merger)
• Hyphenation: wea‧ther

weather (countable and uncountable, plural weathers)

1. The short term state of the atmosphere at a specific time and place, including the temperature, relative humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, wind, etc.
2. Unpleasant or destructive atmospheric conditions, and their effects.

   Wooden garden furniture must be well oiled as it is continuously exposed to weather.

3. (nautical) The direction from which the wind is blowing; used attributively to indicate the windward side.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 3:

     One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an ice-island.

4. (countable, figuratively) A situation.
5. (obsolete) A storm; a tempest.
   • Dryden

     What gusts of weather from that gathering cloud / My thoughts presage!

6. (obsolete) A light shower of rain.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wyclif to this entry?)

• (state of the atmosphere): meteorology
• (windward side): weatherboard

• dirty weather
• space weather

weather (not comparable)

1. (sailing, geology) Facing towards the flow of a fluid, usually air.

   weather side, weather helm

• (nautical) windward

• (nautical, geology) lee

weather (third-person singular simple present weathers, present participle weathering, simple past and past participle weathered)

1. To expose to the weather, or show the effects of such exposure, or to withstand such effects.
   • H. Miller

     The organisms […] seem indestructible, while the hard matrix in which they are embedded has weathered from around them.

   • Spenser

     [An eagle] soaring through his wide empire of the air / To weather his broad sails.

2. (by extension) To sustain the trying effect of; to bear up against and overcome; to endure; to resist.
   • Longfellow

     For I can weather the roughest gale.

   • F. W. Robertson

     You will weather the difficulties yet.

3. To break down, of rocks and other materials, under the effects of exposure to rain, sunlight, temperature, and air.
4. (nautical) To pass to windward in a vessel, especially to beat 'round.

   to weather a cape; to weather another ship

5. (nautical) To endure or survive an event or action without undue damage.

   Joshua weathered a collision with a freighter near South Africa.

6. (falconry) To place (a hawk) unhooded in the open air.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Encyc. Brit to this entry?)

• weareth, whate'er, wheater, whereat, wreathe