the.com/groundswell
a wave that crosses the ocean to break on a shore that never felt the storm.
means A groundswell is a rapidly growing surge of public feeling, opinion, or support that builds powerfully from below before it becomes visible on the surface.
from A compound of plain English bones: "ground" plus "swell." It began as a sailor's word for a deep, broad ocean swell — long rolling waves that arrive at the coast from a distant storm far out to sea, seeming to rise from the ground of the ocean itself rather than from any wind you can feel nearby. By the 19th century the word had been lifted ashore as a metaphor for sentiment that gathers unseen and then arrives all at once, the figurative sense we now use most.
- distant origin
- Born from storms thousands of miles away.
- calm warning
- Sailors read them as approaching weather systems.
- long wavelength
- Smooth, powerful swells with widely spaced crests.
- borrowed meaning
- Now names unstoppable surges of public opinion.
- surfer's gold
- Clean groundswells make the best rideable waves.
pipeline masters 1999 — famous oahu swell event where 10-story waves hit hawaii's north shore in february 1999