1. A hot humid south or southeast wind of southern Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean islands, originating in the Sahara Desert as a dry dusty wind but becoming moist as it passes over the Mediterranean.
2. A hot or warm southerly wind, especially one moving toward a low barometric pressure center.
3. The air comes from the Sahara (as a desert wind) and although it is dry and dusty, the term is not used in North Africa, where it is called chom, "hot" or arifi, "thirsty".

In crossing the Mediterranean the sirocco picks up a great deal of moisture because of its high temperature, and reaches Malta, Sicily, and southern Italy as a very enervating, hot, humid wind.

As it travels northward, it causes fog and rain. There are a number of local variants of the spelling such as xaroco (Portuguese), jaloque or xaloque (Spanish), xaloc or xaloch (Catalonian).

4. Etymology: "hot wind blowing from the Libyan deserts" from the 1610's, from Italian sirocco, from common Arabic shoruq, "the east wind", from Arabic sharqi, "eastern, east wind", from sharq, "east", from sharaqa, "to rise" (in reference to the sun).