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Wordbay · Nature & weather

Words for nature and weather

For describing a landscape, a sky or a season more exactly than “nice” or “grim”: dry land and wet, gentle weather and wild.

Everyday (18)

  • arid adjective. Having so little rain that few plants can grow.
  • balmy adjective. Of weather or air, pleasantly warm and gentle.
  • blustery adjective. Windy, with strong gusts that come and go.
  • brackish adjective. Slightly salty, like the water where a river meets the sea.
  • deluge noun. A heavy downpour of rain, or a great flood.
  • dormant adjective. Alive but inactive for a time, like a plant in winter or a resting volcano.
  • estuary noun. The wide mouth of a river, where its fresh water meets the tide.
  • foliage noun. The leaves of a plant or of trees, taken all together.
  • inclement adjective. Of weather, cold, wet or stormy enough to be unpleasant.
  • muggy adjective. Of weather, uncomfortably warm and damp.
  • overcast adjective. Of the sky, completely covered with grey cloud.
  • perennial adjective. Lasting for a very long time, or happening again and again.
  • petrichor noun. The earthy smell that rises when rain falls after a long dry spell.
  • squall noun. A sudden, short burst of strong wind, often bringing rain or snow.
  • sultry adjective. Of weather, hot, heavy and humid, with the air close and still.
  • torrential adjective. Of rain, falling very heavily and fast.
  • tundra noun. A vast, treeless Arctic plain whose ground below the surface stays frozen all year.
  • vista noun. A long, pleasing view, especially one seen through an opening.

Well-read (23)

  • arboreal adjective. Living in trees, or to do with trees.
  • archipelago noun. A group of islands scattered across a stretch of sea.
  • becalmed adjective. Of a sailing boat, stuck and unable to move because there is no wind.
  • bucolic adjective. Charmingly rural, in the way of the countryside and farm life.
  • crepuscular adjective. Of twilight, or active mainly at dawn and dusk.
  • ephemeral adjective. Lasting only a very short time.
  • fallow adjective. Of farmland, ploughed but left unsown for a season so the soil can recover.
  • fecund adjective. Very fertile, producing new growth in abundance.
  • hoarfrost noun. White, feathery frost that forms on grass, twigs and wires on cold, clear nights.
  • littoral adjective. Of or on the shore of the sea or a lake.
  • loam noun. Rich, crumbly soil of sand, silt and clay, full of rotted plant matter.
  • maelstrom noun. A powerful whirlpool in the sea or a river.
  • meander verb. To follow a winding, looping course.
  • pantheism noun. The belief that God and the universe are one, so that the divine is present in all of nature.
  • riparian adjective. Of, on or near the banks of a river.
  • scree noun. A slope of loose, broken stones on a mountainside or below a cliff.
  • sere adjective. Dry and withered.
  • taxonomy noun. A system for naming and sorting things into groups, especially living things.
  • tempestuous adjective. Stormy and violent.
  • topography noun. The shape and physical features of an area of land.
  • verdant adjective. Green and thick with growing plants.
  • vernal adjective. Of, in or like spring.
  • zephyr noun. A soft, gentle breeze.

Advanced (17)

  • aestival adjective. Of, in or belonging to summer.
  • apricity noun. The warmth of the sun on a cold winter’s day.
  • brumal adjective. Of or like winter.
  • florilegium noun. A collection of literary extracts; also a book of detailed botanical illustrations of flowers.
  • fluvial adjective. Of, found in or made by rivers.
  • fugacious adjective. Tending to disappear or fade quickly; fleeting.
  • gloaming noun. Twilight; the soft, fading light after sunset.
  • lacustrine adjective. Of, living in or formed in lakes.
  • nictitate verb. To blink or wink.
  • psithurism noun. The whispering, rustling sound of wind in the trees.
  • senescence noun. The process of growing old and gradually deteriorating.
  • susurrus noun. A soft, whispering or murmuring sound.
  • sylvan adjective. Of woods, or set peacefully among trees.
  • syzygy noun. The lining up of three heavenly bodies in a straight line, such as the Sun, Earth and Moon.
  • transhumance noun. The seasonal moving of herders and their animals between summer and winter pastures.
  • vespertine adjective. Of, in, or active in the evening.
  • virga noun. Streaks of rain falling from a cloud that dry up before they reach the ground.