brume

[prettygoodword]

brume (BROOM) - n., mist, fog.


I associate this with naval contexts, but there's usage examples enough outside of that -- including, not surprisingly, poetic uses. See also the derived adjective, brumous. Taken around 1800 from French (which is startling timing, considering the war going on then), from (either directly or via Old Occitan/Provençal bruma) Latin brūma, winter, from brevima/brevissima, shortest, superlative of brevis, short -- winter being the time of the shortest days, and in southern France a time of mists and fog.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

And darned if we aren’t right smack in what, under the short-lived French Republican calendar, would be the month of Brumaire, more or less overlapping the zodiacal sign of Scorpio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumaire

[prettygoodword]

I should have remembered to include that!