hurricane

1555, a partially deformed adoptation from Sp. huracan (Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, "Historia General y Natural de las Indias," 1547-9), furacan (in the works of Pedro Mártir De Anghiera, chaplain to the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and historian of Spanish explorations), from an Arawakan (W. Indies) word. In Port., it became furacão. Confusion of initial h- and f- common in Sp. in these years; the conquistador is known in contemporary records as both Hernando and Fernando Cortés. First in Eng. in Richard Eden's "Decades of the New World":

"These tempestes of the ayer (which the Grecians caule Tiphones ...) they caule furacanes."

OED records some 39 different spellings, mostly from the late 16c., including forcane, herrycano, harrycain, hurlecane. Modern form became frequent from 1650, established after 1688. Shakespeare uses hurricano ("King Lear," "Troilus and Cressida"), but in reference to waterspouts.