Etymologically
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monsoon

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /mɒnˈsuːn/ (UK); /mɑnˈsuːn/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from obsolete Dutch monssoen,[2][3][4][5][6] from Portuguese monção,[2][3][4][5][6] from Arabic موسم (mawsim, “season, appropriate time”),[2][3][4][5][6] from wasama “he marked”.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A seasonal wind of southern Asia and the Indian Ocean, blowing from the southwest in summer and the northeast in winter (1584).[7][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The Arabic word, picked up by Portuguese sailors, was used for anything that came round every year, and was extended to the season when the wind was right for voyages to the East Indies.[4][3] Because the summer monsoon of India is the stronger and brings heavy rain, the word came to mean the rainy season and its rainfall (1747).[4][7] From 1691 it was also applied to any wind that changes direction with the seasons.[7][6]

Timeline

  • 1584 – the seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean.[7][3][5]
  • 1691 – any seasonally reversing wind.[7]
  • 1747 – the rainy season; its rainfall.[7][4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A wind system that reverses direction with the seasons, especially that of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia.
  2. The summer southwest wind that brings heavy rain to southern Asia, or the rainy season it brings.
  3. The rain that comes with this wind.

Word family

  • monsoonal

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press