Apedia

Eolian Aeolus Adjective Wind June Ee Oh Lee Un Blew Town

Word eolian
Date June 2, 2020
Type adjective
Syllables ee-OH-lee-un
Etymology When Aeolus blew into town, things really got moving. He was the Greek god of the winds and the king of the floating island of Aeolia. In The Odyssey, Homer claims Aeolus helped Odysseus by giving him a favorable wind. Aeolus also gave English speakers a few terms based on his name, including the adjective eolian (also spelled aeolian), which is often used for wind-sculpted geological features such as caves and dunes, and aeolian harp, the name for an instrument that makes music when the wind blows across its strings.
Examples The park is known for its eolian caves—chambers formed in sandstone cliffs by powerful winds.

"If an extremely tenuous atmosphere like that of Pluto can support the generation of bedforms from wind-driven sediment, what kind of eolian activity might we see on places like Io (a moon of Jupiter)…?" — Alexander Hayes, quoted in The Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2018
Definition : borne, deposited, produced, or eroded by the wind

Tags: wordoftheday::adjective

Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.

Next card: Dessert dɪˈzɜːt fruit end des·sert dɪˈzɜːrt noun sweet

Previous card: Compunction guilty conscience prick compungere feb june noun

Up to card list: Word of the Day