Meaning

noun (meteorology) rapid inward circulation of air masses about a low pressure center; circling counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern

noun a violent rotating windstorm

originCoined by Henry Piddington, probably in the 1840s, and based on some term in Ancient Greek. Sources disagree on the date and on which Ancient Greek term, though it had to be something derived from either κύκλος (kúklos, “circle, wheel”) or κυκλόω (kuklóō, “go around in a circle, form a circle, encircle”), for example the present active participle κυκλῶν (kuklôn). See cycle and wheel.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0