Hurricane

How to spell hurricane

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce hurricane

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hurricane mean?

1. nounA violent tropical storm with extremely high winds, especially one forming over the Atlantic.

Hurricane in a sentence

• The coastal town boarded up its windows before the hurricane arrived.

• Forecasters tracked the hurricane as it moved across the Gulf.

Where does hurricane come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

Hurricane comes ultimately from the Caribbean: it traces back to huracan, a word from the Taino language of the Arawak peoples who lived in the Greater Antilles, where it referred to a great storm and possibly to a storm god or evil spirit of the wind. Spanish explorers in the early 1500s adopted the word as huracan to name the violent tropical cyclones they encountered in the West Indies. English borrowed it in the late 1500s, but with no settled spelling at first, so early writers tried dozens of forms, including 'hurricano' and 'furacane'. The modern English spelling eventually stabilised, fusing the Spanish vowel sounds into the now-familiar 'hurri-' opening and a '-cane' ending that has nothing to do with a walking cane. This tangled borrowing history is why the doubled 'r' and the unexpected '-cane' spelling can trip up even confident writers.

How the word is built

• hurric- (from Taino huracan: a great storm)
• -ane (English spelling of the final syllable)