huracan

Updated: May 13, 2025

In both cases the etymology is faulty; 'hurricane, originally a Carib word, is only a transplanting into our tongue of the Spanish 'huracan. It is a signal evidence of the conservative powers of language, that we may continually trace in speech the record of customs and states of society which have now passed so entirely away as to survive in these words alone.

Richard Chenevix Trench - On the Study of Words