Chapter TUXALL to TYRE of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

native Hindustani use. Many instances of such mistakes might be quoted. It is just possible, though not we think very probable, that some contact with the Formosan term may have influenced the modification of the old English form tuffon into typhoon. It is much more likely to have been influenced by the analogies, of monsoon, simoom; and it is quite possible that the Formosan mariners took up their (unexplained) t’ai-fung from the Dutch or Portuguese.
On the origin of the Ar. word the late Prof. Robertson-Smith forwarded the following note:

“The question of the origin of Tufan appears to be somewhat tangled.

“ [Greek Text] Tufwn, ‘whirlwind, waterspout,’ connected with [Greek Text] tufoV seems pure Greek; the combination in Baal-Zephon, Exod. xiv. 2, and Sephóni, the northern one, in Joel, ii. 20, suggested by Hitzig, appears to break down, for there is no proof of any Egyptian name for Set corresponding to Typhon.

“On the other hand Tufan, the deluge, is plainly borrowed from the Aramaic. Tufan, for Noah’s flood, is both Jewish, Aramaic and Syriac, and this form is not borrowed from the Greek, but comes from a true Semitic root tuf ‘to overflow.’

“But again, the sense of whirlwind is not recognised in classical Arabic. Even Dozy in his dictionary of later Arabic only cites a modern French-Arabic dictionary (Bocthor’s) for the sense, Tourbillon, trombe. Bistáni in the Mohít el Mohít does not give this sense, though he is pretty full in giving modern as well as old words and senses. In Arabic the root tuf means ‘to go round,’ and a combination of this idea with the sense of sudden disaster might conceivably have given the new meaning to the word. On the other hand it seems simpler to regard this sense as a late loan from some modern form of [Greek Text] tufwn typho, or tifone. But in order finally to settle the matter one wants examples of this sense of tufan.”

[Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) gives: “Sometimes claimed as a Chinese word meaning ‘a great wind’ … but this seems to be a late mystification. In old authors the forms are tuffon, tuffoon, tiphon, &c.—Arab. tufan, a hurricane, storm. Gk. [Greek Text] tufwn, better [Greek Text] tufwV a whirlwind. The close accidental coincidence of these words in sense and form is very remarkable, as Whitney notes.”]

c. A.D. 160.—“… dies quidem tandem illuxit: sed nichil de periculo, de saeyitâve remissum, quia turbines etiam crebriores, et coelum atrum et fumigantes globi, et figurae quaedam nubium metuendae, quas [Greek Text] tufwnaV vocabant, impendere, imminere, et depressurae navem videbantur.”—Aul. Gellius, xix. 2.

1540.—“Now having … continued our Navigation within this Bay of Cauchin-china … upon the day of the nativity of our Lady, being the eight of September, for the fear that we were in of the new Moon, during the which there oftentimes happens in this Climate such a terrible storm of wind and rain, as it is not possible for ships to withstand it, which by the Chineses is named Tufan” (o qual tormento os Chins chamão tufão).—Pinto (orig. cap. I.) in Cogan, p. 60.

„ “… in the height of forty and one degrees, there arose so terrible a Southwind, called by the Chineses Tufaon (un tempo do Sul, a q Chins chamão tufão).”—Ibid. (cap. 1xxix.), in Cogan, p. 97.

1554.—“Não se ouve por pequena maravilha cessarem os tufões na paragem da ilha de Sãchião.”—Letter in Sousa, Oriente Conquist. i. 680.

[c. 1554.—“… suddenly from the west arose a great storm known as fil Tofani [literally ‘Elephant’s flood, comp. ELEPHANTA, b.].”—Travels of Sidi Ali, Reis, ed. Vambéry, p. 17.]

1567.—“I went aboorde a shippe of Bengala, at which time it was the yeere of Touffon, concerning which Touffon ye are to understand that in the East Indies often times, there are not stormes as in other countreys; but every 10 or 12 yeeres there are such tempests and stormes that it is a thing incredible … neither do they know certainly what yeere they will come.”—Master Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 370 [369].

1575.—“But when we approach’d unto it (Cyprus), a Hurricane arose suddenly, and blew so fiercely upon us, that it wound our great Sail round about our main Mast.… These Winds arise from a Wind that is called by the Greeks Typhon; and Pliny calleth it Vertex and Vortex; but as dangerous as they are, as they arise suddenly, so quickly are they laid again also.”—Rauwolff’s Travels, in Ray’s Collection, ed. 1705, p. 320. Here the traveller seems to intimate (though we are not certain) that Typhon was then applied in the Levant to such winds; in any case it was exactly the tufan of India.

1602.—“This Junk seeking to make the port of Chincheo met with a tremendous storm such as the natives call Tufão, a thing so overpowering and terrible, and bringing such violence, such earthquake as it were, that it appears as if all the spirits of the infernal world had got into the waves and seas, driving them in a whirl till their fury seems to raise a scud of flame, whilst in the space of one turning of the sand-glass the wind shall veer round to every point of the compass, seeming to blow more furiously from each in succession.

“Such is this phenomenon that the very birds of heaven, by some natural instinct, know of its coming 8 days beforehand, and are seen to take their