gust of wind
gust of wind (metaphor)
/ɡʌst əv wɪnd/
“Gust of wind” is used not only literally (a brief, forceful rush of air) but also idiomatically for any sudden, short-lived surge—of emotion, laughter, rumor, or activity.
Meanings
- Sudden surge or outburst of emotion, sound, or activity.
- It describes a brief, intense event or emotion that disrupts or gives a quick burst of energy.
- A swift and unexpected event or force that disrupts or changes the situation dramatically.
- Sudden, brief, and strong rush of wind (literal).
Synonyms: outburst; eruption; flare; blast; burst; breeze; puff; gale; squall.
Example Sentences
- The scandal hit the company like a gust of wind, scattering plans and confidence alike.
- Her confidence hit like a gust of wind, briefly uplifting the team.
- She spoke with a gust of wind behind her voice—emotion carried on the breeze.
- A sudden, strong gust of wind nearly knocked my hat off (literal).
Origin and History
The idiom rests on a long literal history of gust in English and its Germanic roots, and it appears to have crystallized as a familiar collocation in British English before spreading widely.
Roots of Gust
The noun gust in the wind sense is first recorded in English in the late 16th century and is widely traced to Old Norse gustr meaning “a (cold) blast (of wind),” with related Scandinavian and Germanic forms. Most etymologists connect it to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to pour or stream.”
From Word to Collocation
While gust itself is 16th-century in English, the exact collocation “gust of wind” becomes conspicuous in late-18th-century British literature. A securely dated, widely reproduced instance occurs in 1798, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (in Lyrical Ballads):
“A gust of wind sterte up behind / And whistled thro’ his bones ….”
This line survives in multiple scholarly and archival presentations of the 1798/1800 text.
Earliest Printed Record
On present evidence, the earliest verifiable printed occurrence of the exact phrase “gust of wind” is from 1798 (Great Britain) in Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. Earlier English texts certainly use gust and wind near each other, but no confirmed earlier print of the exact phrase has been identified in accessible archives.
How the idiom took shape – main theories
- Nautical-to-general transfer – Because gust likely entered English as a nautical term, many scholars infer that sailors’ speech popularized set collocations like “gust of wind,” which then generalized metaphorically to sudden surges of sound, feeling, or events. The maritime settings of Romantic-era works helped reinforce this usage.
- Romantic and Gothic amplification – Late-18th-century Gothic and Romantic writing often used weather imagery to reflect mood or sudden changes. “Gust of wind” became a stock device for abrupt turns in plot or emotion. Examples cluster from the 1760s–1790s, helping to fix the phrase in readers’ minds and paving the way for figurative applications.
- Idiomatic broadening in dictionaries – Modern dictionaries explicitly record figurative uses—gusts of laughter, a gust of emotion—indicating the idiom’s stable metaphorical range in current English.
Country of Origin
Given the attested earliest print and Romantic diffusion, the idiomatic collocation originated in Great Britain in the late 18th century, even though the underlying word gust has Germanic and Scandinavian ancestry.
Cultural Backdrop
Visual art titles from the 18th–19th centuries (such as A Gust of Wind or The Gust of Wind) reflect how common the phrase had become, but these artworks post-date the literary consolidation and are better seen as cultural echoes rather than origins.
In summary, the idiom “gust of wind” emerges from an older Norse-derived gust in English, becomes a set phrase in late-18th-century Britain, and is securely attested in 1798 through Coleridge’s poetry. Romantic and Gothic literature accelerated its figurative use, and by the 19th century it had entered general English with both literal and metaphorical meanings.
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