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Meaning & use

tornado

noun·Academic

Last updated

UK/tɔːˈneɪ.dəʊ/
US/tɔːrˈneɪ.doʊ/

Meanings

  1. nouncountable

    A violent, spinning column of air that reaches down from a storm cloud to the ground.

    Grammar: Countable: a tornado, two tornadoes. The plural is 'tornadoes'.

    Patterns

    • a tornado hits something
    • a tornado touches down
    • be killed by a tornado

    A tornado destroyed several houses on the edge of town.

    The sky turned green before the tornado arrived.

    Meteorologists warned that a tornado could touch down within the hour.

  2. nouncountablefigurative

    A very strong, destructive force or event that sweeps through something, often used figuratively.

    Grammar: Often used in phrases like 'a tornado of emotions' or 'a tornado of activity'.

    Patterns

    • a tornado of something
    • a tornado of emotions

    The scandal became a tornado of accusations and denials.

    Her sudden fame was a tornado of interviews and photo shoots.

Word forms

pluraltornadoes

Common combinations

tornado warning
The tornado warning sent everyone to the basement.
tornado season
Tornado season in the central United States peaks in spring.
tornado damage
Insurance companies paid millions for tornado damage.
a tornado touches down
The storm chasers waited for a tornado to touch down.
deadly tornado
A deadly tornado tore through the small town overnight.

Synonyms and how they differ

twister
Informal word for a tornado, common in American English.
cyclone
A much larger rotating storm system; in the Indian Ocean it also means a tropical storm, not a land tornado.
whirlwind
A smaller, usually less destructive spinning wind; often used figuratively for a fast sequence of events.

Word family

tornadic adjective
Relating to or caused by a tornado, used in technical writing.

Commonly confused: tornado or hurricane? tornado or typhoon?

tornado vs hurricane

A hurricane is a huge tropical storm that forms over warm ocean water and can be hundreds of miles wide, while a tornado is a much smaller, short-lived column of air over land.

tornado vs typhoon

A typhoon is the same kind of tropical storm as a hurricane but occurs in the western Pacific; it is not a tornado.

Practice

The weather service issued a ______ warning as the storm approached.

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