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[WIL-ee-wah'] 
1. a violent gust of cold wind or squall blowing from a mountainous region towards the sea, especially near polar latitudes, such as the Straights of Magellan
2. any sudden gust of cold wind: "A brisk williwaw shot over us soon as we opened the door to exit the movie theater, and our advance tickets went soaring down the block."
Origin:
In Action:
"Among the many places heartily disliked by American soldiers few were more disliked than the Aleutian Islands. Cold and damp and barren, dreary and generally nasty, they seemed to many to be worthless and dismally depressing. There liquor was expensive and hard to get, women were scarce and also expensive, and the same men saw too much of each other for too long under exasperating circumstances. The violent Arctic storms, called williwaws, could always be relied upon to sweep down out of the north on the most inconvenient occasions. No wonder that for a generation to come the Aleutians probably will be America's most unpopular insular possession.
A good novel about the Aleutians has been written by one of the youngest soldiers who went there, Gore Vidal. It is called 'Williwaw' and it is a sound, craftsmanlike work that would do credit to a practiced novelist twice its author's age."
Orville Prescott. New York Times, Books of the Times, Review of "Williwaw", by Gore Vidal, June 17, 1946 | |
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