tornado
English
Etymology
From earlier English ternado, attested since the 1550s as a nautical term for a windy thunderstorm.[1] From Spanish tronada (“thunderstorm”), from tronar (“to thunder”), from Latin tonō (“to thunder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”). The o and r were reversed in English (metathesis) under influence of Spanish tornar (“to twist, to turn”), from Latin tornō (“to turn”).
Pronunciation
Noun
tornado (plural tornadoes or tornados)

- (meteorology) A violent wind in the form of a mobile, rapidly rotating, funnel cloud that has contacted the ground.
- Synonym: twister
- 2013 March, Frank Fish, George Lauder, “Not Just Going with the Flow”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 1 May 2013, page 114:
- An extreme version of vorticity is a vortex. The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain, as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.
Synonyms
- twister (informal)
Hypernyms
Coordinate terms
Derived terms
- horse tornado
- rope tornado
- stovepipe tornado
- Tornado Alley
- tornado fry
- tornado outbreak
- tornado potato
- tornado shelter
- tornado siren
- tornado warning (“a tornado has been sighted”)
- tornado watch (“conditions are favorable for producing a tornado”)
- wedge tornado
Descendants
Translations
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Verb
tornado (third-person singular simple present tornados, present participle tornadoing, simple past and past participle tornadoed)
- (transitive, intransitive) To sweep through something violently.
- 2012, Robin Nicole, For the Sake of Appearances:
- And so on Friday nights, James Torin tornadoed through six beers, a carton of cigarettes, a coffee table littered with lottery tickets, and unrequited dreams.
- 2015, James Richardson, Reservations: Poems, page 5:
- They come every night,
those cavernous trains, tornadoing
the frozen house,
a madness feeling for the door.
See also
References
- “tornado”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
Danish
Inflection
common gender |
Singular | Plural | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
nominative | tornado | tornadoen | tornadoer | tornadoerne |
genitive | tornados | tornadoens | tornadoers | tornadoernes |
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Esperanto

Etymology
From French tornade, Italian tornado, German Tornado, Yiddish טאָרנאַדאָ (tornado), Russian торна́до (tornádo), Polish tornado, all derived from English tornado, from Spanish tronada (“thunderstorm”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [torˈnado]
- Audio:
(file) - Rhymes: -ado
- Hyphenation: tor‧na‧do
Noun
tornado (accusative singular tornadon, plural tornadoj, accusative plural tornadojn)
- (meteorology) tornado
- Mia kuzino loĝis en Kansaso kaj spertis multajn danĝerajn tornadojn.
- My cousin lived in Kansas and experienced many dangerous tornadoes.
Finnish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈtornɑdo/, [ˈt̪o̞rnɑ̝do̞]
- Rhymes: -ornɑdo
- Syllabification(key): tor‧na‧do
Declension
Inflection of tornado (Kotus type 2/palvelu, no gradation) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
nominative | tornado | tornadot | ||
genitive | tornadon | tornadojen tornadoiden tornadoitten | ||
partitive | tornadoa | tornadoja tornadoita | ||
illative | tornadoon | tornadoihin | ||
singular | plural | |||
nominative | tornado | tornadot | ||
accusative | nom. | tornado | tornadot | |
gen. | tornadon | |||
genitive | tornadon | tornadojen tornadoiden tornadoitten | ||
partitive | tornadoa | tornadoja tornadoita | ||
inessive | tornadossa | tornadoissa | ||
elative | tornadosta | tornadoista | ||
illative | tornadoon | tornadoihin | ||
adessive | tornadolla | tornadoilla | ||
ablative | tornadolta | tornadoilta | ||
allative | tornadolle | tornadoille | ||
essive | tornadona | tornadoina | ||
translative | tornadoksi | tornadoiksi | ||
abessive | tornadotta | tornadoitta | ||
instructive | — | tornadoin | ||
comitative | See the possessive forms below. |
Possessive forms of tornado (Kotus type 2/palvelu, no gradation) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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See also
Further reading
- “tornado”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03
Galician
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /torˈna.do/
- Rhymes: -ado
- Hyphenation: tor‧nà‧do
Further reading
- tornado in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
Norwegian Bokmål
Noun
tornado m (definite singular tornadoen, indefinite plural tornadoer, definite plural tornadoene)
- (meteorology) a tornado
References
- “tornado” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Noun
tornado m (definite singular tornadoen, indefinite plural tornadoar, definite plural tornadoane)
- (meteorology) a tornado
References
- “tornado” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Polish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tɔrˈna.dɔ/
Audio (file) - Rhymes: -adɔ
- Syllabification: tor‧na‧do
Declension
or
Indeclinable.
Portuguese
Pronunciation
- (Brazil) IPA(key): /toʁˈna.du/ [toɦˈna.du]
- (São Paulo) IPA(key): /toɾˈna.du/
- (Rio de Janeiro) IPA(key): /toʁˈna.du/
- (Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /toɻˈna.do/
- (Portugal) IPA(key): /tuɾˈna.du/ [tuɾˈna.ðu]
- Hyphenation: tor‧na‧do
Serbo-Croatian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tǒrnaːdo/
- Hyphenation: tor‧na‧do
Declension
References
- “tornado” in Hrvatski jezični portal
Spanish
Etymology
Borrowed from English tornado, and this in turn from Spanish tronada (see English etymology for details).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /toɾˈnado/ [t̪oɾˈna.ð̞o]
- Rhymes: -ado
- Syllabification: tor‧na‧do
Related terms
- anticiclón m
- ciclón m
- huracán m
- remolino m
- tifón m
- torbellino m
Participle
tornado (feminine tornada, masculine plural tornados, feminine plural tornadas)
- past participle of tornar
Further reading
- “tornado”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014