| 单词 |
harmattan |
| 释义 |
‖ harmattan|hɑːˈmætən, in 18th c. ˈhɑːmətæn|
Also 7 harmetan, hermitan, 8 -atan, (air-mattan).
[From haramata, the name in the Fanti or Tshî lang. of W. Africa.
According to Norris in Phil. Trans. LXXI. 52 (1780) ‘a corruption of Aherramantah, compounded of Aherraman to blow and tah tallow, grease, with which the natives rub their skin to prevent their growing dry and rough’; but acc. to Christaller, Dict. Asante & Fante Lang. (Basel 1881), a borrowed foreign word, viz. ‘Sp. harmatan, an Arabic word’. (But no such Arabic word has been found.)]
A dry parching land-wind, which blows during December, January, and February, on the coast of Upper Guinea in Africa; it obscures the air with a red dust-fog.
1671R. Bohun Wind 195 Of the Harmetans in Guiny. 1688J. Hillier Lett. fr. Cape Corse in Misc. Cur. (1708) III. 365 We had a dry North and North-Easterly Wind, call'd an Hermitan, and it overcame the Sea-Brize. 1723J. Atkins Voy. Guinea (1735) 149 Air-mattans, or Harmatans, are impetuous Gales of Wind from the Eastern Quarter about Midsummer and Christmas. 1725J. Reynolds View Death (1735) 30 And Harmatans revenge the richness of their oar. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. i. 5 During those months when the harmattan is known to raise clouds of dust high into the atmosphere. 1906F. B. Archer Gambia Colony i. 27 This excessive dryness is undoubtedly due to the severe ‘harmattan’ experienced in the locality. 1963W. Soyinka Lion & Jewel 22 The dew-moistened leaves on a Harmattan morning.
attrib.1671R. Bohun Wind 196 The Harmetan Winds, so called by the Natives, come..in December about Christ⁓mas. 1803T. Winterbottom Sierra Leone I. ii. 2 note, Known by the name of the harmattan wind. 1828Carlyle Misc. (1872) I. 187 The Harmattan breath of doubt. |
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