Definition of "zephyr"

The Western [winds] have been Counted the mildest, & most Auspicious of all others; and were so highly in favour with the Poets, that they thought them worthy of the Golden Age, and to refresh the Elysian groves. [...] But though the Breathing Zephyrs are so much celebrated in Poems and Romances, and happily were kinder to the delicious countries of Italy, & Greece, yet wee find no lesse malignity in their natures from particular accidents and climats, then what wee have observ’d of other Winds.

1671, R. Bohun, A Discourse Concerning the Origine and Properties of Wind‎, Oxford: Tho. Bowman, pages 149–150

O thou Goddeſſe, / Thou diuine Nature; thou[sic – meaning how] thy ſelfe thou blazon'ſt / In theſe two Princely Boyes: they are as gentle / As Zephires blowing below the Violet, / Not wagging his ſweet head; [...]

1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene ii], page 388, column 2

The eaſterly or trade winds, which generally blow between the Tropics, are extremely refreſhing to the coaſt of Guiana, between the hours of eight or ten in the morning, and ſix o'clock in the evening, when they ceaſe to operate, and a zephyr is ſcarcely ever heard to whiſper during the night.

1796, J[ohn] G[abriel] Stedman, chapter II, in Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; […], volume I, London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], and J. Edwards, […], page 31

The dusk of evening came on, soft in its solemnity, and unoppressive even in its gloom, under the sweet sky and unmolested zephyr, casting its pleasant shadows along the edges of the grove.

1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XI, page 135

It [a house] stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Carpet-bag”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 10

The world hummed and spun about him. There was a whirling of zephyr skirts, four impassioned faces sweeping towards the open door of the passage that ran through the vicarage. He felt his position went with them.

1895, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “At the Vicarage. Chapter X.”, in The Wonderful Visit (Macmillan’s Colonial Library), London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., page 39

There was a timeWhen the soft zephyring spring came joyfully,Like a young bride, with bloom upon her cheek—

1879, Robert Stephen Hawker, “An Inscription for an Aged Oak”, in The Poetical Works‎, London: The Bodley Head, page 171

There was a sudden scrambling and thumping overhead and hot exclamations zephyred down to them.

1908, Clarence E. Mulford, chapter 4, in The Coming of Hopalong Cassidy‎, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 60

But there was a new afflation— / An aura zephyring round, / That care infected not: [...]

1922, Thomas Hardy, “An Experience”, in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, London: Macmillan and Co., […], stanza 2, page 111

He was a fragrant poison, a zephyred pestilence spread through all the city.

1849, letter from Leonidas Lent Hamline dated 15 December, 1849, in Walter Clark Palmer, Life and Letters of Leonidas L. Hamline, D.D., New York: Carlton & Porter, 1866, Chapter 15, p. 361

Ah, but the skies are joyous in the spring, / From dawn to dusk exuberantly blue; / White-tufted oftentimes with clouds that do / But wanton in heaven’s zephyred merrying!

1914, Leonard Lanson Cline, untitled sonnet in Poems, Boston: The Poet Lore Company, p. 76

Oh, graciously she led my soul within / Where ever and forever went a wind / In zephyred streams of poppies coursing sweet / About the place, and waves of poppy heat / About us there.

1914, Juliane Paulsen (pseudonym of Juliane Grace Hansen), “Poppy Fantasy” in And Then Came Spring, Boston: The Gorham Press, p. 49