Tornado

How to spell tornado

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tornado

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tornado mean?

1. nounA violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground, capable of severe destruction.

Tornado in a sentence

• The tornado ripped the roof off the barn within seconds.

• Residents took shelter in the basement when the tornado warning sounded.

Where does tornado come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

This word came into English in the 1500s from Spanish, where tronada meant a violent thunderstorm, drawn from the verb tronar 'to thunder', which in turn descends from the Latin tonare 'to thunder'. English sailors who picked it up seem to have reshaped it under the influence of the Spanish verb tornar 'to turn', because a tornado so obviously spins; that blend is why the spelling carries an 'r' before the 'n' rather than after it, as in the original tronada. Over time the meaning narrowed from any fierce tropical storm to the specific whirling funnel of wind we mean today. The shared Latin root tonare also survives in the word 'detonate', literally 'to thunder down'. The lingering trap in the spelling is the single 'r', the single 'n', and the soft '-ado' ending that some writers want to double or stretch.

How the word is built

• torn- (from Spanish tronada 'thunderstorm', influenced by tornar 'to turn')
• -ado (noun suffix)