thunder

plural thunders

1. countableuncountableThe loud rumbling, cracking, or crashing sound caused by expansion of rapidly heated air around a lightning bolt.

   Thunder cracked overhead.

   2 more examples

   Thunder is preceded by lightning.

   With each clap of thunder echoing from one high building to another the noise was terrific.

   1953 July, Allen Rowley, “First Impressions of American Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 493

2. countableuncountableA deep, rumbling noise resembling thunder.

   Off in the distance, he heard the thunder of hoofbeats, signalling a stampede.

3. countableuncountableAn alarming or startling threat or denunciation.

   The thunders of the Vatican could no longer strike into the heart of princes.

   1847, William H. Prescott, A History of the Conquest of Peru

4. countableobsoleteuncountableThe discharge of electricity; a thunderbolt.

   The revenging gods / 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

5. countableuncountableliteratureSynonym of thunder word.

   Adam's fall and Vico's thunder are embodied in a word of a hundred letters, the first of ten thunders in the Wake.

   1996, William York Tindall, A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake, page 31

   Synonyms: thunder word

present singular third person thunders · participle present thundering · participle past thundered · past thundered · first person past singular thundered · archaic present second person singular thunderest · past second person singular thundered · archaic past second person singular thunderedst · present singular third person thunders · archaic present singular third person thundereth · past singular third person thundered · past plural thundered · past subjunctive thundered · participle present thundering · participle past thundered

1. impersonalTo produce thunder; to sound, rattle, or roar, as a discharge of atmospheric electricity.

   It thundered continuously.

2. intransitiveTo make a noise like thunder.

   The train thundered along the tracks.

   2 more examples

   The farmer whose land the Pratincole had chosen to frequent had such an adversion to birders that he had been thundering up and down all day in a high-powered muck-spreader, splattering them with cow dung!

   1983, Bill Oddie, Gone Birding, London: Methuen, page 59

   His words landed like a bomb, and my ears thundered with noise.

   2019, Abby Chava Stein, Becoming Eve, Seal Press, page 46

3. ergativeTo (make something) move very fast (with loud noise).

   Senseless years thunder by / Millions are willing to give their lives for you / Does nothing live on?

   1983, “Forbidden Colours”, in David Sylvian (lyrics), Ryuichi Sakamoto (music), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, performed by David Sylvian

4. intransitivetransitiveTo say (something) with a loud, threatening voice.

   "Get back to work at once!", he thundered.

5. To produce something with incredible power.

   Just as it appeared Arsenal had taken the sting out of the tie, Johnson produced a moment of outrageous quality, thundering a bullet of a left foot shot out of the blue and into the top left-hand corner of Wojciech Szczesny's net with the Pole grasping at thin air.

   2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1 - 3 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2011

1. The 13th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.