Link Centre Dictionary

thunder

thun·der

UK/ˈθʌndə/ US/ˈθʌndɚ/ common
noun (3) verb (4)

noun

1.
2.

a booming or crashing noise caused by air expanding along the path of a bolt of lightning

3.

verb

1.

move fast, noisily, and heavily

  • “The bus thundered down the road”
2.

utter words loudly and forcefully

  • “Get out of here,”
Synonyms
3.

be the case that thunder is being heard

  • “Whenever it thunders, my dog crawls under the bed”
Synonyms
4.

to make or produce a loud noise

  • “The river thundered below”
  • “The engine roared as the driver pushed the car to full throttle”

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • black as thunder
  • black thunder
  • blood and thunder
  • by thunder
  • castle thunder
  • Chad Thundercock
  • face like thunder
  • heat thunder
  • thundering herd problem

Related words

Word family

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Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.