Definition of "zephyr" in English

noun

1. A light wind from the west.

2. Any light refreshing wind; a gentle breeze.

3. Anything of fine, soft, or light quality, especially fabric.

4. A type of soft confectionery made by whipping fruit and berry purée (mostly apple purée) with sugar and egg whites with subsequent addition of a gelling agent like pectin, carrageenan, agar, or gelatine.

verb

1. (intransitive, poetic) To blow or move like a zephyr, or light breeze.

2. (transitive, poetic) To blow or blow on gently like a zephyr; to cool or refresh with a gentle breeze.

   • 1849, letter from Leonidas Lent Hamline dated 15 December, 1849, in Walter Clark Palmer, Life and Letters of Leonidas L. Hamline, D.D., New York: Carlton & Porter, 1866, Chapter 15, p. 361, He was a fragrant poison, a zephyred pestilence spread through all the city.
   • 1914, Leonard Lanson Cline, untitled sonnet in Poems, Boston: The Poet Lore Company, p. 76, Ah, but the skies are joyous in the spring, From dawn to dusk exuberantly blue; White-tufted oftentimes with clouds that do But wanton in heaven’s zephyred merrying!
   • 1914, Juliane Paulsen (pseudonym of Juliane Grace Hansen), “Poppy Fantasy” in And Then Came Spring, Boston: The Gorham Press, p. 49, Oh, graciously she led my soul within Where ever and forever went a wind In zephyred streams of poppies coursing sweet About the place, and waves of poppy heat About us there.