get wind of (catch wind of)

idiom

- to hear a piece of information that someone else was trying to keep secret

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

Used since the first half of the 1800’s, the allusion is to an animal becoming aware of a scent carried on the air.

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Wind, like all forces of nature, has always had a special place in mythology. For the ancient Greeks winds were personified as gods, called the Anemoi. These included Boreas, Notos, Euros, and Zephyros. In our modern world, many local wind systems, such as Föhn, have special names:

Bora - a northern to north-eastern katabatic wind in the Adriatic, Greece, Russia and Turkey. Its name derives from the Greek mythological figure of Boreas, the North Wind

Kona - southeast wind in Hawaii, replacing the trade winds, bringing high humidity and often rain

Mistral - cold northerly from central France and the Alps to Mediterranean

Fremantle Doctor – an afternoon sea breeze from the Indian Ocean which cools Perth, Western Australia during summer

Santa Ana – southern California

Nor'easter - a strong storm with winds from the northeast in the eastern United States, especially New England

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SYNONYMS
(in the sense of becoming aware of something)

ascertain, be advised of, be informed about, catch on, discover, find out, gather, learn, pick up, receive, to hear something through the grapevine

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like:

"Did you GET WIND OF changes going on at the top? I heard there will be an announcement tomorrow."