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Etesian, e-tē′zhan, adj. periodical: blowing at stated seasons, as certain winds.

The great heat of summer is tempered throughout the whole region of the archipelago by the Etesian winds, which blow regularly from the N.E. for forty to fifty days in July and August.

The healthy Etesian winds are generally replaced towards the end of summer by the southerly Libas or sirocco, which, when blowing strongly, resembles the blast from a furnace and is most injurious to health.

But Democritus says that about the winter solstice there are heavy falls of snow in the countries around the north; but that when the sun changes its course, at the summer solstice, the snow being melted and evaporated by the warmth, clouds are formed, and then the Etesian gales catch hold of them, and drive them towards the south; and when these clouds are all driven together towards Æthiopia and Libya, a mighty rain ensues, and the water from that flows down the mountains and fills the Nile.

A new season is ushered in by the cool north wind—the Etesian wind of the Greeks—which clears the accumulated dust from vegetation.