TIDAL WAVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Tidal wave

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/tˈaɪdəl weɪv/ Listen

noun

Tidal wave n.

An unusually high wave from the sea, sometimes reaching far inland and causing great destruction, and usually caused by some event, such as an earthquake, far from the shore. In Japan, such a wave is called a tsunami.

(fig.) An unusually large quantity of items or events requiring attention and causing strain on the capacity to handle them; as, a tidal wave of orders for a new product; a tidal wave of tourists.

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Etymology of 'Tidal wave'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tidal wave" Quotes from Famous Books

... a dog! it was due to a greve, a strike. It came upon the Papeete people like a tidal wave out of the sea, or like a cyclone that devastates a Paumotu atoll, but, entre nous, it had been brooding for months. Fish had been getting dearer and dearer for a long time, and householders had complained bitterly. They recalled the time when for a franc one could buy enough delicious fish for ...

— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... him be killed within their own precincts. But, if Callomb could be shot down in his uniform, under circumstances which seemed to bear the earmarks of South authorship, it would arouse in the State at large a tidal wave of resentment against the Souths, which they could never hope to stem. And so, lest one of Hollman's hired assassins should succeed in slipping across the ridge and waylaying him, Samson conducted him to the frontier of ...

— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... TIDAL WAVE. The wave caused by the combined action of the sun and moon: its greatest influence is felt some time after the moon has passed the meridian ...

— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... western horizon, I saw the sea coming back. It occurred to me then that I did not wish it to come back. A tidal wave is nearly always wet, and I was now a good way from home, with no ...

— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... through my palms so that both were torn and bleeding when I stood panting beside Raffles in the flower-beds. There was no time for thinking then. Already there was a fresh commotion in-doors; the tidal wave of excitement which had swept all before it to the upper regions was subsiding in as swift a rush downstairs; and I raced after Raffles along the edge of the drive ...

— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

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