A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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veering
A wind shifting clockwise — south to west, west to north. In the northern hemisphere, a veering wind typically signals fair weather or the passage of a warm front. The opposite of backing. The old rhyme: “A veering wind, fair weather; a backing wind, foul weather.”
Etymology
From Middle French “virer” (to turn), possibly from Vulgar Latin “*virare,” related to Latin “viriae” (bracelets) via a notion of circular motion. In meteorology, “veering” specifically describes a clockwise shift in wind direction, distinguished from “backing” (counterclockwise) — a distinction formalized in 19th-century nautical and weather terminology.