foehn

noun /fɜːn/

1. A warm dry wind blowing down the north sides of the Alps, especially in Switzerland.

   The foehn and the sun must have awakened the spirits of spring way up in the heights.

2. A similar katabatic wind developing on the lee side of a mountain.

   The foehn, I learned, was first recorded in the Alps but is found all over the world. The Santa Anas contain the occasional foehn, nicknamed “murder winds” and immortalized in Joan Didion's 1965 essay “Los Angeles Notebook"

Where it comes from

Borrowed from German Föhn, from Old High German phonno, from Vulgar Latin faōnius, an alteration of Latin favōnius (“west wind”), from Favōnius (“Roman wind god”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry foehn (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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