Rumors, gossip.
“I heard that Bob’s getting canned.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, it’s in the wind.”
Colonel Flagg is in the wind
Gone like a fart in the wind does not mean a fart is immanent.
Rumors of impeachment are in the wind DOES mean it impeachment is likely.
Therefore, context dependent.
“Context”, but “other” really.
“…[friends] who came in with the dust and are gone with the wind” is another Dylan quote. Otherwise, something “in the wind” is rumored but not inevitable, nor gone except words or thoughts “lost in the wind”.
(Something) in the wind. (Something) with the wind. (Something) to the wind.
Ah, that last: “There was a desert day so windy, a hen sitting on a barb-wire fence with her tail to the wind laid the same egg twelve times.” Or, “He spoke to the wind and it whispered back.” How about casting our fate to the wind? Let it go where it will!
I’ll just go wherever the wind takes me
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It is also critical when either taking off or landing an aircraft.
The question was about the phrase “In the wind”, not the phrase “into the wind”.
Context is critical. Mike is in the wind means that Mike slipped away & no one seems to know where he is. Usually that implies that the LAW would like to know his whereabouts.
Raises for the top tier is in the wind means that the rumors are that the top tier folks will be getting a pay hike.
The answers are blowing in the wind means, at least to me, that the answers are, like Mike, nowhere to be found.
I’ve never heard this expression.
Context.
A person “in the wind” has disappeared, taken off.
Something “in the wind” is an expectation that it will happen
I don’t think I’ve ever come across “in the wind” as an actual English usage, intended to mean anything.
Fifty years or so ago in France, “Dans le vent” – literally “in the wind” --was a popular slang expression among young people: meaning, switched-on; in tune with the spirit of the day among the young. I was given to understand that it was taken directly from the French version of Bob Dylan’s words,
“Ecoute, mon ami, ecoute dans le vent;
Ecoute la reponse dans le vent.”
I’ve only heard the second one. I’m actually a bit surprised at how lopsided the poll was–I would’ve bet it would be lopsided the other way.
Then there is “twisting in the wind”, meaning both “utterly failed in what you were trying to do”, and “utterly abandoned by everyone who should have supported you”.
I voted “gone; disappeared” but somehow, somewhere I also associate it with being on motorcycle. I don’t know where I got that idea, perhaps that is part of bikers’ lingo(?) And - this is kind of spooky (to me) - I used that very expression a couple of days ago while I was relating my weekend activities. I just so happened to get to ride in a friend’s
Exocet (race car thingy) and the next day on another friend’s Harley and I said something like “seems like I was in the wind all weekend”. That is probably the first time I have ever used that expression and now we have a thread on it.
Wooooohhhooohhohoho
Yup. I can’t think of any instances of hearing this phrase outside of that song.
If I heard it, I would guess from context. And probably guess it meant something like:
Hmm, I may have heard this one, but I think the word “twisting” is critical:
The image is something hanging from a rope, twisting around, without being able to keep it’s course.