Zephyr

The story of the word

Zephyros was the west wind personified, one of the four Anemoi, and in the Greek year he brought the mild air of spring. Homer is less generous: in the Iliad the Zephyros whips the sea into whitecaps. Old English already had zefferus from the Latin, and the gentle sense won out, giving English a noun for a light breeze and, by the nineteenth century, for a fabric light enough to be moved by one. The name may be tied to ζόφος, the gloom of the western sky.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Latin → Old English

First recorded

Old English