The adverb ροιζηδον (roizodon) means with a gentle whistling, hissing or swooshing sound (2 Peter 3:10 only). It and its variant ροιζηδα (roizoda) are rare in the classics, but the associated noun ροιζος (roizos), a swooshing or hissing, and verb ροιζεω (roizeo), to produce a swooshing sound, are relatively common, and describe the hiss of a snake, the rush of bird wings, the zip of an arrow, the rush of a stream, the swoosh of a falling tree and even the distant piping of a lonely shepherd.

It's not clear where these words come from, and it's often suggested that they are onomatopoeic (imitating sound, like the English words swoosh, zing, wallop). There's also a noun ροιβδος (roibdos), whose suffix -δος (-dos) is common for sound-words (and hence a majority of onomatopoeic words), which suggests that our word describes a sort of rrrrr-sound or something like rrrrrB! or rrrrrFFF, with an abrupt termination, and probably closer to a trilling German "r", than a French guttural "r", or an English soft "r".

Another possibility that's worth considering is that our word stems from something that was imported from the Semitic language basin along with the alphabet (see our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek). A Hebrew word that comes to mind is the verb רזה (raza), to grow thin or to waste away, and particularly the noun רזי (razi), a wasting away, or simply "woe!", as used in the haunting words of Isaiah 24:16: רזי־לי (razi-li), "Woe to me!"