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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
windfall
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
windfall tax
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
gain
▪ Meanwhile for the transnational companies that dominate the global coffee economy, the slump in coffee prices is generating windfall gains.
▪ There was no shortage of opinions on what to do with the windfall gains.
profit
▪ Would the Minister find it acceptable if the same sort of windfall profits were made by the beneficiaries of the sell-offs?
▪ For a short-term gain of a one-off windfall profit, far greater future losses were stored up.
tax
▪ Labour has imposed the utility windfall tax, introduced the minimum wage and ramped up petrol duty.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The merger could mean a $2.2 billion windfall for shareholders.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Building societies were converting into banks, insurance companies were changing their status, the air was thick with windfalls.
▪ But for those with guts, some of the highest yields around can be found here -- and even an occasional windfall.
▪ Mazzocchi said taxes to buy insurance for the uninsured would be a windfall for the insurance industry.
▪ Meanwhile for the transnational companies that dominate the global coffee economy, the slump in coffee prices is generating windfall gains.
▪ Voice over For growers across Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire the extra demand for apples is truly an unexpected windfall.
▪ Would the Minister find it acceptable if the same sort of windfall profits were made by the beneficiaries of the sell-offs?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Windfall

Windfall \Wind"fall`\, n.

  1. Anything blown down or off by the wind, as fruit from a tree, or the tree itself, or a portion of a forest prostrated by a violent wind, etc. ``They became a windfall upon the sudden.''
    --Bacon.

  2. An unexpected legacy, or other gain.

    He had a mighty windfall out of doubt.
    --B. Jonson.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
windfall

mid-15c., from wind (n.1) + fall (n.1). Originally literal, in reference to wood or fruit blown down by the wind, and thus free to all. Figurative sense of "unexpected acquisition" is recorded from 1540s.

Wiktionary
windfall

n. 1 Something that has been blown down by the wind. 2 A fruit that has fallen from a tree naturally, as from wind 3 (context figuratively English) A sudden large benefit; especially, a sudden or unexpected large amount of money, as from lottery or sweepstakes winnings or an unexpected inheritance or gift.

WordNet
windfall
  1. n. fruit that has fallen from the tree

  2. a sudden happening that brings good fortune (as a sudden opportunity to make money); "the demand for testing has created a boom for those unregulated laboratories where boxes of specimen jars are processed lik an assembly line" [syn: boom, bonanza, gold rush, gravy, godsend, manna from heaven, bunce]

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Windfall (comics)

Windfall is a fictional character and reformed supervillain in the DC Comics universe. She first appeared in Batman and the Outsiders #9, written by Mike W. Barr and drawn by Jim Aparo.

Windfall (TV series)

Windfall is an American television serial drama about a group of people in an unnamed small city who win almost $400 million in a lottery. The series premiered on June 8, 2006 on NBC, taking the time slot occupied by ER during the rest of the year.

On August 31, 2006, NBC announced the show's cancellation by stating on its website that the episode that night would be the series finale. Controversially, NBC also gave local affiliates the option of showing pre-season football instead and showing the final episode at each affiliates discretion. Many affiliates took them up on this, planning to show it either much later that night or at other odd days/times during the Labor Day weekend (for example, WNBC-TV in New York planned to show the episode at 12:30pm on September 3, 2006). 1 2

In the UK and Middle East the show has been picked up by Five Life and Showtime Arabia respectively. It is also shown in Ireland on the channel 3e weekdays at 3pm.

Windfall

Windfall may refer to:

Windfall (album)

Windfall is Ricky Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band's country rock album from 1974.

Windfall (novel)

Windfall is a novel written by English author Desmond Bagley, and was first published in 1982. It was the last of his works to be published within his lifetime.

Windfall (1955 film)

Windfall is a 1955 British comedy film written by John Gilling and directed by Henry Cass, starring Lionel Jeffries, Jack Watling and Gordon Jackson. Dad's Army star Arthur Lowe also makes a brief appearance in the film.

Windfall (1935 film)

Windfall is a 1935 British drama film adapted by Jack Celestin and Randall Faye from the R. C. Sherriff play of the same title. The film was directed by Frederick Hayward and George King with starring Edward Rigby and Marie Ault and George Carney.

Windfall (sculpture)

Windfall is a public art work by Canadian artist Robert Murray located at the Lynden Sculpture Garden near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The sculpture is an abstract form made of aluminum panels set at angles; it is painted bright red and installed on the lawn.

Windfall (2010 film)

Windfall is a 2010 documentary film directed by Laura Israel about the reaction of residents in rural Meredith, New York (in Delaware County, New York) to a proposal to place numerous wind turbines in their community to harness wind power. It's important to note that this film was done by an interested local citizen, not some organization with an agenda. Laura did this film because she had a media degree from NYU, and this seemed like an compelling local activity that would have broader interest to citizens countrywide.

Laura is not an energy expert, and does not portray herself as one. She is a citizen who went to great lengths to have people on both sides of the story have their say. (The wind developer was asked to be interviewed for the film, but they declined.) The narrative relates to what happens when citizens get more educated about the very technical issue of industrial wind energy. In essence, this is a story about the democratic process.

Windfall (Joe Pug album)

Windfall is Joe Pug's third album.

The album met positive reviews, with Paste Magazine rating it 7.6/10, adding: "In lesser hands, songs of this nature could take on the tone of self-help books, maxims of dubious value. But Pug’s honesty and wordplay combine to levitate the songs over those empty, clichéd realms. And the straightforward, balanced arrangements of acoustic and electric guitars and upright bass, with occasional piano, harmonica and drums, drive the focus to Pug’s vocals."

The Lexington Herald-Leader praised the album's two-band approach as presenting an "elegiac, electric vitality" to the "unhurried solemnity" of the songs. Windfall's hopeful final track – "If Still It Can't Be Found," which featured Wilco's Pat Sansone on mellotron – received particular acclaim, with a Rolling Stone review noting that "it showcases the singer's unique and achingly honest point of view that spins lyrics into folk poetry."

For this album, Pug cites more contemporary influences than previous albums, including Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, and M. Ward. However, Pug's trademark literary influences are still present: the chorus of "The Measure," which repeats, "all we’ve lost is nothing to what we’ve found" is inspired by a quote by Frederick Buechner's novel Godric.

Usage examples of "windfall".

This one-quarter percentage point difference may seem minuscule, but in the hands of securities traders and arbitrageurs, advance word could be parlayed into quite a windfall.

Chet had talked about some sort of a job that Cruke could arrange, but Herb had never expected a windfall like this.

The Caermelor Road had threaded its way through farmlands, past garths and granges, crofts and byres, alongside hedged meadows where cattle pondered or shepherds with crosiers in hand followed their flocks, past pitch-roofed haystacks, ponds teeming with ducks, tilled patches of worts in leafy rows, and burgeoning fields of einkorn, emmer, and spelt where hoop-backed reapers toiled, by vineyards glutted with overflow of clammy juice and moss-trunked orchards already ravished, the last windfalls rotting on the ground, their sweet decay choired by sucking insects.

Sometime soon I suspect the windfall will all have gone up in wacky tabacky smoke, and Mooner and Dougie will be living a lot less luxuriously.

Next, came a windfall as an entire box of timing pencils for C-4 was discovered, but no plastique itself.

By leaving a fairly dense stand he prevents the windfall danger which threatens the survivors of too vigorous cutting, and also prevents them from assuming the branchy form of trees which receive too much side light.

Dirrach to reassure himself that the fresh windfall of mana was genuine and resided, not in outlander sorcery, but in hydrophane opals.

We could not expect any further large windfalls of vessels such as those which had followed the overrunning of Norway, Denmark, and the Low Countries in the spring of 1940.

Morca had learned better than to provoke further absurd replies by pressing him to tell how the windfall had been come by.

When the smoke cleared, Hazard cautiously uncurled from behind a windfall and, rising, walked slowly over to the two white men, his pistols drawn, to make certain they were dead.

Since Kostchei the Deathless had arranged this windfall, and because he was still on salary holdback, Florian advanced him the money to buy a badger coat for himself, as well.

Unwilling to risk losing this windfall, Tinwright was preparing to retreat with the tankard to his room before the potboy realized what he had done, and was heartbroken to hear Gil say, You are a poet .

The edge of the lake a riprap of twisted stumps, gray and weathered, the windfall trees of a hurricane years past.

Many companies used this windfall not merely to import more raw and semifinished products, but also to upgrade equipment and acquire advanced foreign technology.

He seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcases of oxen, mules and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have been opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned army bacon.