1. A hot humid south or southeast wind of southern Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean islands: The sirocco winds originate in the Sahara Desert as dry dusty winds but become moist as they pass over the Mediterranean.

A sirocco wind is a hot or warm southerly wind, especially one moving toward a low barometric pressure center.

The air comes from the Sahara (as a desert wind) and although it is dry and dusty, the term sirocco wind is not used in North Africa, where it is called "chom", hot, or "arifi", thirsty.

In crossing the Mediterranean the sirocco wind 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).

2. 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).

The stream of charged particles "blown" by the thermal pressure of the Sun out from its corona, which it cannot retain by gravity: The solar winds are streams of charged atomic particles, mostly protons an electrons, from the Sun's corona, that flow outwards at speeds of between 300 kilometers per second or 200 miles per second and 1,000 kilometers per second or 600 miles per second.

In the vicinity of the Earth, these particles have a velocity of about 300 miles, or 500 kilometers, per second.

The stream of particles "blown" into space.by the radiative pressure of a star: Stellar winds are winds that are emitted from the surface of a star into the space.around it.

1. To bring to an ending: Because it was getting late in the day, Mr. Smith said, "Let's wind up this meeting now, please."
2. To start: Mike said, "Wind up the clock now so it will start keeping time and start the alarm in the morning."