stentorian

comparative more stentorian · superlative most stentorian · alternative rare Stentorian

1. Loud, powerful, booming, suitable for giving speeches to large crowds.

   There seemed no one to dispute his claims when he said, or rather shouted, in stentorian tones: "I am Tsa. This is my she. Who wishes her more than Tsa?"

   1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, part II, number 12, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, March 1927, →OCLC, page 1140, column 2

   5 more examples

   Shouts of laughter were elicited, smart biddings drawn out, from the whispers of a timid miss, to the stentorian voice of a fox-hunting squire, and not a few fracas from parties either contending for a supposed prize, or disclaiming their chance for it,...

   1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 223–224

   But whenever one of the motor-trucks lumbering by bore a big U.S. on its rear panel Troy pushed his light ambulance ahead and skimmed past, just for the joy of seeing the fresh young heads rising pyramid-wise about the sides of the lorry, hearing the snatches of familiar songs—"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" and "We won't come back till it's over over here!"—and shouting back in reply to a stentorian "Hi, kid, beat it!", "Bet your life I will, old man!"

   1918, Edith Wharton, chapter IX, in The Marne, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 87–88

   The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the time-honoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 304

   Giving us a last embracing and comprehensive glance he drew it, already pivoting Jupiter on the tight snaffle; his hair tossed beneath the cocked hat, the sabre flashed and glinted; he cried, not loud yet stentorian: "Trot! Canter! Charge!"

   1934 September 29, William Faulkner, “Ambuscade”, in The Unvanquished, New York, N.Y.: Random House, published 1938, →OCLC; republished in The Unvanquished: The Corrected Text, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, October 1991, →ISBN, section 2, pages 12–13

   To be sure, Ubu Roi does not translate easily, if at all. Take the first word of the play, so shocking to contemporary theatergoers, Ubu's stentorian “Merdre!”—which is, of course, the basic French curse word with an added “r” for good, or bad, measure.

   1989 July 17, John Simon, “The Ubu Boo-Boo”, in New York Magazine, volume 22, number 28, page 47

2. broadlyStern, authoritarian; demanding of respect.

comparative more Stentorian · superlative most Stentorian

1. rareRare form of stentorian.

   The Stentorian voice spoke out again: I said, LET THERE BE GOLF!

   2000, James B. Cash, “Preamble: I. Genesis”, in Playing Through (Pronounced Thruff) the Rough (Pronounced Ruff): An Irrelevant History of Golf(e), Sort Of; or, Scotland, Shakespeare, and Golf(e), Kettering, Oh.: Carney, Cole Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 7

   5 more examples

   Neither is eloquence or rhetoric unclaimed by him: he perſuaded with Stentorian loquacity, and convinces by the irreſiſtible powers of a bellowing horſe laugh.

   1771 April, A Candidate Doctor of Oddities [pseudonym], “To the Printer of the Town and Country Magazine”, in The Town and Country Magazine; or, Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment, volume III, London: […] A[rchibald] Hamilton, Junʳ. […], →OCLC, page 202, column 1

   Lieut. Col. [Charles] Bœrstler, exerting a Stentorian voice, roared in various directions as though he commanded thousands, and created such a panic in the enemy, that they fled before him whereever he moved.

   1817, S[amuel] S[tanhope] Smith et al., “Battle of Queenstown; Cannonading from Erie to Ontario; […]”, in David Ramsay, S. S. Smith, et al., History of the United States, from Their First Settlement as English Colonies, in 1607, to the Year 1808, […] Continued to the Treaty of Ghent, […], volume III, Philadelphia, Pa.: […] M[athew] Carey, […], →OCLC, page 204

   But Ramble, who was remarkable for his Stentorian faculties, riſing, put an end to the diſpute, by roaring out the burleſque on the Attic Fire, in a voice Stentor himſelf need not have been aſhamed to own.

   1766, “The History Returns to Charles. He Is Introduced to a Numerous Company. […]”, in The Wanderer: or, Memoirs of Charles Searle, Esq; […], volume I, London: […] T[homas] Lowndes, […], →OCLC, pages 216–217

   Applying the law of the case to our present argument, the section to be interpreted overrides in Stentorian voice, any contentions to the contrary.

   1887–1896, Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, edited by Robert Ricatte, Journal : Mémoires de la vie littéraire 1887–1896, volume 16 (overall work in French), Monaco: Editions de l’Imprimerie nationale de Monaco, published 1956–1958, →OCLC, page 31

   And she pondered the first of Miss Seeton’s sketches, the one Delphick had been coerced into showing her: the sleek cat reflected in the mirror, with the ram—the ram from the wrong, confusing case—beneath it on the bonnet of the Rolls-Royce in which Ferencz Szabo, of the Stentorian voice, rode so proudly.

   1994, Hamilton Crane [pseudonym; Sarah J. Mason], chapter 32, in Miss Seeton Undercover (Miss Seeton; 17), New York, N.Y.: Berkley Prime Crime, →ISBN, page 256