chinook wind

noun pl. Chinooks or Chinook

1. a member of a North American Indian people of the Columbia River valley and adjacent regions
2. either of two languages spoken by this people, Lower Chinook, now extinct, and Upper Chinook, still spoken in Oregon and Washington
3. Chinook jargon
4. the warm, dry wind blowing intermittently down the east side of the Rockies during the winter and early spring, which causes the rapid thawing of snow
   in full chinook wind

Origin: < tsi-núk, a Salish name for the Chinook tribe