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Halcyon vs Tempest - What's the difference?

halcyon | tempest |

As nouns the difference between halcyon and tempest

is that halcyon is in classical legends, a bird said to nest on the sea, thereby calming the waters; later usually identified with a type of kingfisher, hence a kingfisher while tempest is a storm, especially one with severe winds.

As an adjective halcyon

is pertaining to the halcyon or kingfisher.

As a verb tempest is

to storm.

halcyon

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • In classical legends, a bird said to nest on the sea, thereby calming the waters; later usually identified with a type of kingfisher, hence (poetic) a kingfisher.
  • *, II.12:
    • the Halcyon' bird, or as some call it Alcedo or Kings-fisher, exceeds all mens conceit..
  • * 1665 , (John Dryden), (The Indian Emperour) , IV iv 132:
    • Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be / As halcyons brooding on a winter sea.
  • * c''.1880 , (Ambrose Bierce), '' :
    • And, by the way, during those halcyon days (the halcyon was there, too, chattering above every creek, as he is all over the world) we fought another battle.
  • * Dryden
    • Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be / As halcyons brooding on a winter sea.
  • A tropical kingfisher of the genus Halcyon'', such as the sacred kingfisher ''(Halcyon sancta) of Australia.

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the halcyon or kingfisher
  • Calm, undisturbed, peaceful, serene.

    • Quotations

    {{timeline, 1700s=1787, 1800s=1842, 1900s=1919 1963}} * 1787 — *: Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age. * 1842 — , Cicero *:* Deep, halcyon repose. * 1919 — *: I had wander’d in rapture beneath them, and bask’d in the Halcyon clime. *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham) , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.}}

    Synonyms

    * at peace, blissful, calm, peaceful, prelapsarian, relaxed, serene

    Derived terms

    * halcyon days

    See also

    * Alcyone ----

    tempest

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A storm, especially one with severe winds.
  • * 1847 , (Herman Melville), Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas , ch. 16:
    • 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.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1892, author=(James Yoxall)
    • , chapter=5, title= The Lonely Pyramid , passage=The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.
  • Any violent tumult or commotion.
  • * 1914 , (Ambrose Bierce), "One Officer, One Man":
    • 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.
  • (label) A fashionable social gathering; a drum.
    • (Smollett)

    Derived terms

    * tempest in a teapot * tempestuous

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (rare) To storm.
  • (transitive, chiefly, poetic) To disturb, as by a tempest.
  • * 1667 , , Paradise Lost , Book VII:
    • . . . the seal
    And bended dolphins play; part huge of bulk,
    Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
    Tempest the ocean.
  • * 1811 , , "The Drowned Lover," in Poems from St. Irvyne :
    • Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,
    And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air.

    References

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