Also sou’wester, sou-wester. [Reduced f. SOUTH-WESTER sb.]
1. = SOUTH-WESTER sb. 1.
1838. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 157. Frost ended in a set in of dirty sou’-wester, with a constant batch of wind and rain.
1894. W. E. Norris, St. Ann’s, I. 180. One of those steady, relentless sou’-westers, accompanied by sheets of rain.
2. = SOUTH-WESTER sb. 2.
1837. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 130. I shipped my sou-wester and went fishing.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xxxii. He also provided Rob with a species of hat,… which is usually termed a sou’wester.
1870. Thornbury, Tour rd. Eng., II. xxviii. 239. [The] men have their shiny-yellow sou’-westers pulled down over their brows.
b. attrib., = SOUTH-WESTER sb. 2 b.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 13/1. When the captain comes down again, in a sou’-wester hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat.
1860. C. A. Collins, Eye-witness, ix. 120. It is a neighbourho[o]d of canvas trousers and sou’-wester hats, of sextants and the boxing of compasses.
3. Naut. (See quot., and cf. NOR’-WESTER 2.)
1848. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., 40, note. Half-and-half was equivalent to what seamen call a sou’-wester, that is to say, half rum and the rest rum-and-water.
Hence Sou’-westered a., wearing a sou’-wester.
1891. Du Maurier, in Harper’s Mag., July, 179/1. That unseasonably sou’-westered man at the wheel.
