cloudlet

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cloudlet.wav

The idea is to use the cloudlet as a flexible gateway or portal to access the distant cloud. The cloudlet can be implemented on PCs, workstations or low-cost servers.

2017, Kai Hwang, Min Chen, Big-Data Analytics for Cloud, IoT and Cognitive Computing, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:

(computing) A small-scale cloud data center deployed at the edge.


pileus

Borrowed from Latin pīleus, a form of pilleus (“a felt cap”).

The most short-lived of all the accessory clouds, pileus is also the most beautiful.

2011, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloud Collector's Handbook, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

(meteorology) A small thin cloud attached to a cumulus cloud.

Coordinate term: Phrygian cap

Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus.

1859, William Smith, editor, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, page 920:

(historical, Ancient Rome) A conical felt hat worn in Ancient Rome and Greece.

plisi

felt hat worn in ancient Rome and Greece


funnel cloud

When we saw the funnel cloud, we headed for the basement.

(meteorology) A tapering, rapidly rotating cloud descending from a larger storm cloud, indicating the presence of an intense vortex. A tornado is a funnel cloud which reaches the ground.


fractus

FIGURE 5.17[…]The ragged-appearing clouds beneath the nimbostratus are stratus fractus, or scud.

2013, C. Donald Ahrens, Robert Henson, Meteorology Today, 11th edition, Cengage Learning, page 130:

(meteorology) A cloud species which consists of broken shreds of cloud; scud.


rack

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”)
The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

der

The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, […] pass without noise.

1669, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum or A Natural History in ten Centuries, page 32:

And the night rack came rolling up.

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish ... That which is now a horse ... The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct

c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene xiv]:

Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.


wrack

en-noun

wrack (countable and uncountable, plural wracks)

Late Middle English, from Middle Dutch wrak, ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *wrekaną (“to drive out”), the source of wreak and wreck. Doublet of vraic.
Cognate with German Wrack, Old Norse rek, Danish vrag, Swedish vrak, Old English wræc); also compare Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (wrikan), 𐍅𐍂𐌰𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wrakjan, “persecute”), Old Norse reka (“drive”).

der

Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the family Fucaceae.

goémon

any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the genus Fucus


morning glory

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-morning glory.wav

A rolling cloud in the shape of a cylinder; a roll cloud.


cloudy

en-adj

cloudy (comparative cloudier, superlative cloudiest)

cloudier (comparative)
cloudiest (superlative)

From Middle English cloudy (“cloudy, overcast, gloomy, dark", also "hilly, rocky”), from Old English clūdiġ (“stony, rocky”), equivalent to cloud + -y.

inh

Covered with or characterised by clouds; overcast.


cumulonimbus

en-noun

cumulonimbus (plural cumulonimbuses or cumulonimbi)

cumulonimbuses (plural)
cumulonimbi (plural)

From Latin cumulus (“heap”) + nimbus (“cloud”).

The one to the east (which at the moment seemed to be leaping straight out of the heart of a sinister slaty-purple patch of cumulonimbus) drained the Lake of the Hanging Glaciers; that to the west a desolate rock and ice-walled valley which was rimmed by some of the highest summits in the Selkirks.

1921, Lewis R. Freeman, chapter III, in Down the Columbia:

(meteorology) A cloud, with a tall structure and a flat base, that is often associated with thunderstorms.


anvil

From Middle English anfilt, anvelt, anfelt, from late Old English anfilt, anfilte, anfealt, from earlier onfilti (“anvil”), from Proto-West Germanic *anafalt (compare Middle Dutch anvilte, Low German Anfilts, Anefilt, Old High German anafalz), compound of *ana (“on”) + *falt (“beaten”) (compare German falzen (“to groove, fold, welt”), Swedish dialectal filta (“to beat”)), from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂-t- (“shaken, beaten”) (compare Middle Irish lethar (“leather”), Latin pellō (“to beat, strike”), Ancient Greek πάλλω (pállō, “to toss, brandish”)), enlargement of Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂- (“to stir, move”). More at felon.

der

(meteorology) A horizontal-topped mass of cloud, shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, that forms before a thunderstorm.


cumulus

Borrowed from Latin cumulus. Doublet of comble.

There were some new cumuli in the east, out above the water, and they began to take the late afternoon sun.

1919, Henry B[lake] Fuller, “Cope Enlivens the Country”, in Bertram Cope’s Year: A Novel, Chicago, Ill.: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, →OCLC, page 102:

2007 September 1, "Who’s afraid of Google?: The world’s internet superpower faces testing times", in The Economist, The Economist Newspaper Ltd, ISSN 0013-0613, volume 384, number 8544, page 9,
Ironically, there is something rather cloudlike about the multiple complaints surrounding Google. The issues are best parted into two cumuli: a set of “public” arguments about how to regulate Google; and a set of “private” ones for Google’s managers, to do with the strategy the firm needs to get through the coming storm.

A large white, puffy cloud that develops through convection.


incus

(meteorology) an accessory cloud, in the shape of an anvil which forms by spreading at the top of a cumulonimbus.


arcus

Borrowed from Latin arcus. Doublet of arc and arco. Distantly related to arrow.

(meteorology) A low, horizontal cloud typically forming at the leading edge of thunderstorm outflow


scud

en-adj

scud (comparative more scud, superlative most scud)

more scud (comparative)
most scud (superlative)

From Middle English scud (“incrustation, scurf, scab, peel, shedding”), perhaps from Old Norse skjóta (“to shoot, push, throw off, shed”).


scud

en-noun

scud (countable and uncountable, plural scuds)

But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face […]

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

Small, ragged, low cloud fragments that are unattached to a larger cloud base and often seen with and behind cold fronts and thunderstorm gust fronts. Such clouds generally are associated with cool moist air, such as thunderstorm outflow.

2004, US National Weather Service Glossary

(uncountable) A loose formation of small ragged cloud fragments (or fog) not attached to a larger higher cloud layer.

sumupilvi

(slang, uncountable, Scotland) Pornography.

a bottle of scud

(slang, uncountable, Scotland) The drink Irn-Bru.


condensation trail

condensation trail (plural condensation trails)

A contrail; a visible line of condensation flowing from the edge of an airplane wing or similar structure.


contrail

An artificial cloud made by the exhaust of jet aircraft or wingtip vortices that precipitate a stream of tiny ice crystals in moist, frigid upper air.


nimbus

Borrowed from Latin nimbus (“dark cloud”). Doublet of nimb.


pannus

Borrowed from Latin pannus (“cloth”). Doublet of pagne, pan, and pane.

(meteorology) A type of accessory cloud, looking like shreds either attached to, or separated from, the main cloud formation; mainly associated with nimbostratus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus.


thundercloud

thunder and lightning
thunder and lightning

(meteorology) A large, dark cloud, usually a cumulonimbus, charged with electricity and producing thunder and lightning; a storm cloud.


pallium

Borrowed from Latin pallium (“a cloak”). Doublet of pall.

(historical) A large cloak worn by Greek philosophers and teachers.

Tut, tut, I have absolved thee: dost thou scorn me, / Because I had my Canterbury pallium / From one whom they dispoped?

1877, Alfred Tennyson, Harold: A Drama, London: Henry S. King & Co., →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 76:

Gregory sent Augustine a special liturgical stole, the pallium, a piece of official ecclesiastical dress borrowed from the garments worn by imperial officials.

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 339:

Wynfrith, an Anglo-Saxon monk later known as St Boniface, who was the first archbishop of Mainz and a key figure in the Empire's church history, was given cloth that had lain across St Peter's tomb as his pallium in 752.

2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 23:

(Christianity) A woolen liturgical vestment resembling a collar and worn over the chasuble in the Western Christian liturgical tradition, conferred on archbishops by the Pope, equivalent to the Eastern Christian omophorion.

(obsolete, meteorology) A sheet of cloud covering the whole sky, especially nimbostratus.


velum

Borrowed from Latin vēlum (“a cloth, covering, awning, curtain, veil”). Doublet of veil.

bor

(meteorology) an accessory cloud resembling a veil extending over a large distance; normally associated with cumulus and cumulonimbus


stratocumulus

(meteorology) A principal low-level cloud type, predominantly stratiform, in the form of a gray and/or whitish layer or patch, which nearly always has dark parts and is nonfibrous.


cirrostratus

/ˌsɪɹəˈstɹeɪtəs/

(meteorology) A principal high-level cloud type appearing as a whitish veil, usually fibrous but sometimes smooth, which may totally cover the sky and which often produces halo phenomena. Abbreviated Cs


cirrocumulus

(physics, meteorology) A principal high-level cloud type appearing as a thin, white patch of cloud without shadows, composed of very small droplets in the form of grains or ripples. The elements may be merged or separate, and more or less regularly arranged; they subtend an angle of less than 1° when observed at an angle of more than 30° above the horizon. Holes or rifts often occur in a sheet of cirrocumulus. Abbreviated Cc.


altocumulus

(physics, meteorology) A fleecy cloud formation consisting of large whitish or greyish globular cloudlets with shaded portions, often grouped in flocks or rows. (Abbreviated Ac.)


altostratus

(physics, meteorology) A principal medium-level cloud type in the form of a gray or bluish (never white) sheet or layer of striated, fibrous, or uniform appearance.


cirrus

He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above where the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.

1952, Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea, Harper Perennial classics, published 2014, page 282:

The blue sky is glossy and fat with heat, a few thin cirri sheared to blown strands like hair at the rims.

1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 15:

(meteorology) A principal high-level cloud type characterised by white, delicate filaments or wisps, of white (or mostly white) patches, or of narrow bands, found at an altitude of above 7000 metres.


nimbostratus

(meteorology) According to the World Meteorological Organization, a mid-level, principal cloud type, generally formless and dark grey in colour, which forms from altostratus occurring in layers at the middle altitude of the troposphere (usually above 2400 metres). Nimbostratus usually brings precipitation as the mid-level clouds thicken and subside into the low level of the troposphere. Frontal or cyclonic lift can also carry the top of a deep nimbostratus layer into the high levels of the troposphere. Also classified or characterized as multi-level; abbreviated Ns.


stratus

en-noun

stratus (usually uncountable, plural strati)

Borrowed from Latin stratus. Doublet of strath.

(meteorology) A principal, low-level cloud type in the form of a gray layer with a rather uniform base, usually not associated with precipitation, and capable of producing corona phenomena and a weak, uniform luminance; abbreviated St.


cloud bank

The hills were slate under the stacks of black cloudbank.

1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 6:

"Then he wrote: “Sunset threatening, with a low bank of clouds to N. and E. Sky clear overhead.”"

A wall of clouds, rising above horizon or observed from a distance, but not overhead.

nuvolada

a wall of clouds observed from a distance

mamaru

Referring to this phenomenon when dark in colour.


thunderhead

Half the sky was checkered with black thunderheads, but all the west was luminous and clear:

1918, Willa Cather, chapter 19, in My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 158:

The wisps of smoke above Léogane became dark and thick, and flowered into a towering thunderhead—an ominous cloud that drifted slowly to the westward and was constantly replenished at its base by uprushes of blacker smoke.

1947, Kenneth Roberts, chapter 28, in Lydia Bailey, Garden City, NY: Doubleday:

The sky ahead was huge with storm: all the whiteness had gone from the thunderheads, and they rolled and swirled with sulphur yellow, sea green, smoke gray, oil black, a queasy churning miles high and as wide as the horizon.

2000, Philip Pullman, chapter 29, in The Amber Spyglass, New York: Del Rey, page 349:

The top portion of a cumulonimbus cloud, which tends to be flattened or fibery in appearance, and may be indicative of thunderstorm activity.


rain cloud

Between the grey mist of rainclouds the sun suddenly appeared to mottle the wet asphalt of Marble Arch in patches of silver and ebony.

1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XXII, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 214:

During this fine run through Fife the weather had deteriorated rapidly, and as we passed Wormit and came onto the Tay Bridge heavy rain clouds were piled over the sea.

1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, page 7:

A cloud from which rain is falling or may fall.


anvil cloud

A tall thundercloud (cumulonimbus) whose top has reached the tropopause and become flat, creating a characteristic shape likened to an anvil.


stratus fractus

(meteorology) Stratus clouds which are scattered or ragged.

bólstraruðningur

stratus clouds which are scattered or ragged


storm cloud

Uncertainty hangs over the industry like a storm cloud on a summer's day, preventing long-term planning and investment.

2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 35:

(meteorology) A dark and ominous cloud that appears to indicate a coming storm.

хма́ра

rain cloud with potential to bring a storm

ជលធរ

cŭəllĕəʼthɔɔ


iridescent cloud

iridescent cloud (plural iridescent clouds)

polar stratospheric cloud
polar stratospheric cloud


polar stratospheric cloud

polar stratospheric cloud (plural polar stratospheric clouds)

(meteorology) A relatively rare type of clouds that occurs high in the stratosphere; polar stratospheric clouds often resemble mother-of-pearl as they shine in vivid colours, known as irisation


lenticular cloud

lenticular cloud (plural lenticular clouds)

(meteorology) A high-altitude cloud that is shaped like a lens.


spindrift

spindrift (countable and uncountable, plural spindrifts)

Oxford English Dictionary
Scottish National Dictionary

Borrowed from Scots spindrift; further etymology uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests it is a variant of spoondrift (archaic), apparently due to the pronunciation of this word in southwestern Scotland, which is derived from spoon + drift (“mass of matter driven or forced onward together in a body, etc., especially by wind or water”); spoon is a variant of spoom (“to sail briskly with the wind astern, with or without sails hoisted”). However, this is doubted by the Scottish National Dictionary because spoondrift is attested later than spindrift and it seems unlikely that the Scots spelling would have superseded the English one, and because the early use of the Scots word in the form spenedrift by James Melville (1556–1614) is unlikely to have derived from spoondrift.
The word was popularized in English from the late 19th century by its use in the novels of the Scottish-born author William Black (1841–1898): see, for example, the 1878 quotation.

compound

There was no snow as yet up here at Dare; but wild tempests shaking the house to its foundations; and brief gleams of stormy sunlight lighting up the grey spindrift as it was whirled shorewards from the breaking seas; […]

1878, William Black, “First Impressions”, in Macleod of Dare. […], volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 252:

The ocean waves are broken up by wind, ultimately producing the storm-wrack and spin-drift of the tempest-tossed sea.

1900, John E[dward] Marr, “Production of Dominant Forms”, in The Scientific Study of Scenery, New York, N.Y.: New Amsterdam Book Co.; London: Methuen & Co., →OCLC, page 22:

[T]ogether they watched the bobbing black specks as they crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the harbour mouth.

1921 August–September, John Buchan, “The Gorbals Die-hards Go into Action”, in Huntingtower, London; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, published July 1924, →OCLC, page 271:

The tide rocks were spouting spray and the wind drove the spindrift in their faces, and they scrambled awkwardly over and round the rock masses tumbled from the cliff face on the flat ledge at sea-level.

1938, Norman Lindsay, chapter XXI, in Age of Consent, London: T[homas] Werner Laurie […], →OCLC, page 225:

(nautical) Sea spray (clouds of water droplets) blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of the sea.

водни пръски

sea spray blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of the sea

(by extension) Clouds of sand, snow, etc., whipped along the ground by the wind.


mares' tails

A cirrus cloud formation resembling horse tails.


pyrocumulus

(volcanology, meteorology) A dense cloud associated with fire or volcanic activity.


shelf cloud

(meteorology) A low, horizontal cloud typically forming at the leading edge of thunderstorm outflow. An arcus type cloud often found along squall lines.


cloud genus

(meteorology) Grouping of the standard cloud classification system. Members include cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, altocumulus, altostratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus, stratus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus.


lenticularis

(meteorology) a cloud species which consists of rounded lens shaped of cloud, often forming near mountains. Associated with cirrocumulus, and altocumulus, and sometimes stratocumulus genera.


cap cloud

(meteorology) An accessory cloud in the form of a cap which occurs above, or attached to, cumulus, cumulonimbus, and sometimes stratocumulus clouds.


crest cloud

(meteorology) a standing cloud, extending downwind from a mountain range, or ridge.


standing cloud

(meteorology) a small cloud that remains stationary and is related to a geographical feature, such as a mountain. Classified as banner clouds, cap clouds, crest clouds, or lenticular clouds http://amsglossary.allenpress.com


banner cloud

From banner + cloud. From being a banner-like cloud that hangs off a mountain like a flapping flag.

(meteorology) a small, triangular cloud, extending downwind from the peak of a mountain as if a flag, or banner.


accessory cloud

en-noun

accessory cloud (plural accessory clouds)

Pileus An accessory cloud of small horizontal extent, in the form of a cap or hood above the top or attached to the upper part of a cumuliform cloud, which often penetrates it.

1982, Michele G. Melaragno, Wind in architectural and environmental design, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, →ISBN:

(meteorology) A small cloud formation which is found attached to, or close by, a major cloud of one of the cloud genera, which is responsible for its development and continuance.


nebulosus

(meteorology) a cloud species which consists of a veil of cloud, showing no distinct details. Associated with cirrostratus, and stratus genera.


mammatus cloud

(meteorology) A cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud.


asperitas

asperitas (plural asperitates or asperitases or asperitas)

asperitates (plural)
asperitases (plural)
asperitas (plural)

/æsˈpɛɹɪtæs/

From Latin asperitās, replacing the older undulatus asperatus. Doublet of asperity.

A cloud formation characterized by wavy undulations in the cloud base.


woolpack

From Middle English wolpak, wullepak, equivalent to wool + pack.

(heraldry) A charge resembling a pillow or cushion.


cloudling

And yet at first it seemed hard to believe that so innocent a cloudling could be the progenitor of mist dense enough to blot out even a section of the enormous landscape.

1894, George Smith, William Makepeace Thackeray, John St. Loe Strachey, The Cornhill magazine:

“I'll give you an example: a cloudling may coalesce one morning and rise to the sky, ready to meander across the horizon for a few hours before joining a bank of other cloudlings.

A small or miniature cloud; an immature or formative stage in the development of a cloud.


roll cloud

They usually appear to be "rolling" about a horizontal axis.

(meteorology) A low, horizontal, tube-shaped, and relatively rare type of arcus cloud, differing from shelf clouds by being completely detached from other cloud features.


pyrocumulonimbus

Coordinate term: thunderhead

An analysis of how this tornado formed sees several factors joining forces: the preexisting winds and local topography, a pyrocumulonimbus storm developing, and the addition of hotter-burning fuels as the fire hit groups of houses.

2020, Daniel Mathews, Trees in Trouble: Wildfires, Infestations, and Climate Change, Catapult, →ISBN:

Last Wednesday, though, conditions led to the creation of a larger, taller cloud called a pyrocumulonimbus, which is similar to a thunderhead. It likely reached an altitude of about 45,000 feet, said Neil Lareau, who studies wildfire behavior at the University of Nevada, Reno.

[2021 July 19, Henry Fountain, “How Bad Is the Bootleg Fire? It’s Generating Its Own Weather.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

An extreme manifestation of a pyrocumulus, generated by the heat of a wildfire, that often rises to the upper troposphere or lower stratosphere.


wall cloud

(meteorology) A localized, persistent, often abrupt lowering from a rain-free base of a thunderstorm.


flammagenitus

flammagenitus (plural flammagenituses or flammageniti)

flammagenituses (plural)
flammageniti (plural)

/ˌflæməˈd͡ʒɛnɪtəs/

From Latin flamma (“flame”) + genitus (“begotten”), past participle of gignō.

A dense cumuliform cloud associated with fire or volcanic eruptions.


hole punch cloud

hole punch cloud (plural hole punch clouds)

(meteorology) Synonym of fallstreak hole