Windswept means bare and shaped by constant wind. A windswept moor, windswept and treeless, windswept hair.
Applied to a place it says the wind has done lasting work — the trees lean, or there are none. Applied to a person it just means blown about for the moment. Note the compound of wind and swept, where the sweeping is what the wind has done.
1adjectivewindsweptBare and shaped by constant wind.
“The windswept island had no trees, only rocks and short grass.”
windswept is a quality of exposure.
Wind plus swept, the past participle of sweep. The image is of the wind having brushed the place bare.
From wind + swept.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA