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.
双语例句
1. The blustery winds of spring had dropped to a gentle breeze.
呼啸的春风已经减弱，成了习习的微风。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The tops of the trees rippled in the breeze.
树冠在微风中婆娑摇曳。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The sun went in, and the breeze became cold.
云层遮住了太阳，微风有了些凉意。
来自柯林斯例句
4. There was a short sharp shower followed by a strengthening breeze.
一场短时强阵雨后风势渐长。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The sun baked down on the concrete, unrelieved by any breeze.