thunder

name

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

noun

Etymology: From Middle English thunder, thonder, thundre, thonre, thunnere, þunre, from Old English þunor (“thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *þunr, from Proto-Germanic *þunraz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ten-, *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”). Compare astound, astonish, stun. Germanic cognates include West Frisian tonger, Dutch donder, German Donner, Old Norse Þórr (English Thor), Danish torden, Norwegian Nynorsk tore. Other cognates include Persian تندر (tondar), Latin tonō, detonō, Ancient Greek στένω (sténō), στενάζω (stenázō), στόνος (stónos), Στέντωρ (Sténtōr), Irish torann, Welsh taran, Gaulish Taranis. Doublet of donner, Thunor, and Thor.

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

   “Thunder is preceded by lightning.”

   “Thunder cracked overhead.”

2. A deep, rumbling noise resembling thunder.

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

3. An alarming or startling threat or denunciation.

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

4. The discharge of electricity; a thunderbolt.

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

5. Synonym 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.”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English thundren, from Old English þunrian (“to thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *þunrōn, from Proto-Germanic *þunrōną (“to thunder”).

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

   “It thundered continuously.”

2. To make a noise like thunder.

   “The train thundered along the tracks.”

   “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!”

3. To (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?”

4. To 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.”