williwaw
(ˈwɪlɪwɔː)
Also willy-, -ie-, wulli(e)-, wully-wa.
[?]
A sailor's (whaler's, etc.) name for a sudden violent squall, orig. in the Straits of Magellan.
| 1842 J. D. Hooker in Life (1918) I. vi. 137 A squall or Williewaw, as they are called [round Cape Horn]. 1863 FitzRoy Weather Bk. 125 note, Those whirlwind squalls, formerly called by the sealers in Tierra del Fuego, ‘willi⁓waws’. 1901 Kipling Kim xiii, Where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to dance. |