mondrain

French edit

FWOTD – 28 December 2013

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

mondrain m (plural mondrains)

(geography) sand hillock
- 1955, Claude Lévi-Strauss, chapter VII, in Tristes Tropiques, Plon, published 1993, →ISBN, page 67; republished as John & Doreen Weightman, transl., Tristes Tropiques, Penguin, 2011, →ISBN:
  L’air peu à peu tidédissait, les sierras espagnoles défilaient doucement à l’horizon et des mirages en forme de mondrains et de falaises prolongeaient le spectacle pendant des journées entières, au large de la côte d’Afrique trop basse et marécageuse pour être directement visible.
  — The air gradually became warmer, the Spanish sierras went slowly by on the horizon and, off the African coast, which was too low and swampy to be directly visible, the spectacle was prolonged for days on end by mirages representing hillocks and cliff faces.