breeze: [16] Breeze has not always connoted ‘lightness’ or ‘gentleness’. Old Spanish briza, its probable source, meant ‘cold northeast wind’, and that is the meaning it originally had in English. The word was picked up through English-Spanish contact in Central and South America, and the fact that on the Atlantic coast of the area the onshore winds were from the east and northeast led in the 17th century to breeze being applied to any cool wind from the sea (as in ‘sea breezes’), and gradually to any light wind.
The adjective breezy perhaps retains more of the word’s earlier ‘cold’ connotations. The breeze [18] of breezeblock is a completely different word, meaning ‘cinders’, and comes from French braise ‘live coals’, source also of English braise and brazier.
breeze (n.)
1560s, "north or northeast wind," from Old Spanish briza "cold northeast wind;" in West Indies and Spanish Main, the sense shifting to "northeast trade wind," then "fresh wind from the sea." English sense of "gentle or light wind" is from 1620s. An alternative possibility is that the English word is from East Frisian brisen "to blow fresh and strong." The slang for "something easy" is American English, c. 1928.
breeze (v.)
"move briskly," 1904, from breeze (n.). Related: Breezed; breezing.
雙語例句
1. The blustery winds of spring had dropped to a gentle breeze.
呼嘯的春風已經減弱，成了習習的微風。
來自柯林斯例句
2. The tops of the trees rippled in the breeze.
樹冠在微風中婆娑搖曳。
來自柯林斯例句
3. The sun went in, and the breeze became cold.
雲層遮住了太陽，微風有了些涼意。
來自柯林斯例句
4. There was a short sharp shower followed by a strengthening breeze.
一場短時強陣雨後風勢漸長。
來自柯林斯例句
5. The sun baked down on the concrete, unrelieved by any breeze.