blustery

Etymology

bluster + -y

adj

1. Blowing in loud and abrupt bursts.
   Currently, there are blustery winds blowing in Patagonia.
   Fortunately, that May morning was bright and sunny; the breeze blew warm from the southland instead of cold and blustery from the lake, and it was the very best kind of a morning possible for being out of doors. 1920, Clara Ingram Judson, “Lost—One Doll Cart”, in Mary Jane’s City Home, New York: Barse & Hopkins, page 117
   He wished fleetingly that he could once more be out in the open, as when he was a boy—never in the house, but the sound of the blustery wind frightened him. 1957, Bernard Malamud, chapter 1, in The Assistant, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, page 8
2. Accompanied by strong wind.
   Today is such a cold blustery day!
   […] blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Introduction
   In the small hours of a blustery October morning in a south Devon coastal town that seemed to have been deserted by its inhabitants, Magnus Pym got out of his elderly country taxicab and, having paid the driver and waited till he had left, struck out across the church square. 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
   The drizzle became blustery rain as she approached Curracloe. 1999, Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship, New York: Scribner, page 88
3. (of a person) Pompous or arrogant, especially in one's speech; given to outbursts.
   Duke Wilhelm […] seems to have been of a headlong, blustery, uncertain disposition; much tossed about in the controversies of his day. 1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, London: Chapman and Hall, Volume 1, Book 3, Chapter 12, pp. 295-296
   He talks in a rather loud, blustery way and has a nervous, irritable manner. 1930, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 1, in The Maltese Falcon, New York: Knopf
   Uncle Miles wished only to dodge the issue that had hurled them apart, offering an effusive and blustery hospitality as an alternative to the air-clearing discussion which the situation so urgently called for. 1937, Lloyd C. Douglas, chapter 16, in Forgive Us Our Trespasses, London: Peter Davies, page 290
   Vayu was a large, strong, blustery character, full of drive and energy but mercurial in temperament. 1989, Shashi Tharoor, chapter 22, in The Great Indian Novel, New York: Arcade, published 2011