thunderbolt

plural thunderbolts

1. A flash of lightning accompanied by a crash of thunder.

   Our quiuering Lances ſhaking in the aire, / And bullets like Ioues dreadfull Thunderbolts, / Enrolde in flames and fiery ſmoldering miſtes, / Shall threat the Gods more than Cyclopian warres, […]

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene iii

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   And the sword that had visited Earth from so far away smote like the falling of thunderbolts [...] and the runes in Alveric’s far-travelled sword exulted, and roared at the elf-knight; until in the dark of the wood, amongst branches severed from disenchanted trees, with a blow like that of a thunderbolt riving an oak-tree, Alveric slew him.

   1924, Lord Dunsany, chapter III, in The King of Elfland's Daughter, New York: G.P. Puttnam's Sons, page 30

   He describes the operation thus: "The heavy ram employed to impart the finishing strokes, hoisted up with double purchase and snail's pace to the summit of the Piling Engine, and then falling down like a thunderbolt on the head of the devoted timber, driving it perhaps a single half inch in to the stratum below, is well calculated to put to the test the virtue of patience, while it illustrates the old adage of—slow and sure."

   1952 July, W. R. Watson, “Sankey Viaduct and Embankment”, in Railway Magazine, page 487

2. figurativelyAn event that is terrible, horrific or unexpected.

   News of the actress’s death came as a thunderbolt to her fans.

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   the Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war

   1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

   A greater wreck, a deeper fall, / A shock to one—a thunderbolt to all.

   1819, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, a Poem, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza I, page 5, lines 13–14

3. Vehement threatening or censure; especially, ecclesiastical denunciation; fulmination.

   a thunder-bolt of warre Striking all Nations

   1627, G[eorge] H[akewill], An Apologie of the Power and Prouidence of God in the Gouernment of the World. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Iohn Lichfield and William Turner, […], →OCLC

4. ball gamesA very powerful shot.

   Substitute Niko Kranjcar's injury-time thunderbolt gave Tottenham a dramatic win over Bolton.

   2011 February 5, Michael Kevin Darling, “Tottenham 2 - 1 Bolton”, in BBC

5. biologyA belemnite, or thunderstone.
6. governmentA charge in the form of two joined bundles with four rays of lightning emerging from them, resembling the thunderbolt of Jupiter.
7. A daring or irresistible hero.

present singular third person thunderbolts · participle present thunderbolting · participle past thunderbolted · past thunderbolted

1. raretransitiveTo strike with a thunderbolt.
2. rareTo move swiftly and violently.

1. trademarkcomputer hardwareA computer interface standard for connecting devices, combining PCI Express, DisplayPort and DC power in one connector.