tempest

noun

1. A storm, especially one with severe winds.

   “For a Tempeſt. Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auſter and Boreas, and caſt them together in one Verſe. Add to theſe of Rain, Lightning, and of Thunder (the loudeſt you can) quantum ſufficit. Mix your Clouds and Billows well together till they foam, and thicken your Deſcription here and there with a Quickſand. Brew your Tempeſt well in your Head, before you ſet it a blowing.”

   “BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas blow; / Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof; / Your incivility doth ſhow, / That innocence is tempeſt proof; / Though ſurly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; / Then ſtrike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm. [Attributed to Roger L'Estrange (1616–1704).]”

   “As every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of the Pacific is far different from a tempest in the howling North Atlantic.”

   “The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.”

2. Any violent tumult or commotion.

   “Comforted with these reflections, the tempest of his soul subsided”

   “They awaited the word "forward"—awaited, too, with beating hearts and set teeth the gusts of lead and iron that were to smite them at their first movement in obedience to that word. The word was not given; the tempest did not break out.”

3. (obsolete)A fashionable social gathering; a drum.

verb

1. (intransitive, rare)To storm.
2. (poetic, transitive)To disturb, as by a tempest.

   “. . . the seal And bended dolphins play; part huge of bulk, Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean.”

   “Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve, And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air.”

name

1. A surname transferred from the nickname.