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Thunder   /θˈəndər/   Listen
Thunder

verb
(past & past part. thundered; pres. part. thundering)
1.
Move fast, noisily, and heavily.
2.
Utter words loudly and forcefully.  Synonym: roar.
3.
Be the case that thunder is being heard.  Synonym: boom.
4.
To make or produce a loud noise.  "The engine roared as the driver pushed the car to full throttle"



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"Thunder" Quotes from Famous Books



... There had been a thunder shower just before he had set out, and now, although rain had ceased, the sky remained blackly overcast and a curious, dull stillness was come. The air had a welcome freshness and the glistening pavements looked delightfully cool after the parching heat of the day. In ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... others. Laughter appears to stand in need of an echo, Listen to it carefully: it is not an articulate, clear, well-defined sound; it is something which would fain be prolonged by reverberating from one to another, something beginning with a crash, to continue in successive rumblings, like thunder in a mountain. Still, this reverberation cannot go on for ever. It can travel within as wide a circle as you please: the circle remains, none the less, a closed one. Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. It may, perchance, have happened to you, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... thereto from somewhere out of the unseen, fearful mimes, and from a drum an image, as it were, of thunder underground is borne on the ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... On the edge of the horizon the sun winked with a red eye, as much as to say, "Don't flatter yourselves, I shall be back again soon;" then he slowly sank out of sight. It was comforting to have him go, if only for a little while. "Perhaps," thought the people, "a thunder-storm or something may come along before morning, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... not fit any gun the Spaniards had mounted. The Admiral paid no attention to the big rock and the alleged torpedoes, but steamed up the bay near the city where the Spaniards were sleeping. He was hunting the fleet he was ordered to remove, and found it very early in the morning. Still the thunder of his guns seems to thrill and electrify the air over the bay, and shake the city; and the echoes to ring around the world, there is no question—not so much because the Americans won a naval victory without a parallel, as that Dewey improved ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... about six per cent, ad valorem; and this was a more wholesome way of serving the State than by abridging the liberty of the people in the choice of personal attire. Meantime the preachers were left to thunder from their pulpits upon the sinfulness of starched rues and ornamental top-knots, and to threaten their fair hearers with the wrath to come, with as much success as usually ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the hollow was illuminated by a blinding flash of lightning, and indeed his last words were drowned in the thunder that boomed and crashed in deepening peals over ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... their place, not so liable to be censured for that fault; beside, a lapse of memory had once or twice occasioned temporary delay and embarrassment; but I had got along thus far, I say, as I presumed, exceedingly well, when, oh, thunder! Donna Clara disengaged her hand, curtseyed deeply, bade me good-night, and swept haughtily out of the room. Egad! I felt as if roused out of my berth by a cold sea filling it full in the middle of my watch below. 'Lord!' thought I, aloud, 'what can I have done? There I was, making love according ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... about to break upon us. It came on like a wall, enormous, irresistible; one instant, and it had devoured the intervening space; another, and we were lost in the deluge, and the great rain drops were spilled upon the roof with the noise of continuous thunder. As the deep sound reverberated through the roof above me, I went in exulting to a hearth piled with blazing logs, glad in the prospect of renewing for many weeks old and quiet habitudes of indoor life, rich with solace of books ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... shaping unmade spheres, And, like a blessing or a curse, They thunder down the formless years And ring throughout ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... East bowed low before the blast, In patience, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... but with a bona fide flight, sometimes close to the water, sometimes some feet above it. One flew on board, and measured roughly eighteen inches between the tips of its wings. On Saturday, November 5, the trades left us suddenly after a thunder-storm, which gave us an opportunity of seeing chain lightning, which I only remember to have seen once in England. As soon as the storm was over, we perceived that the wind was gone, and knew that we had entered that unhappy region of calms which extends over a belt of ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... the match. A simultaneous flash of lightning and clap of thunder filled the room. The glass in the window fell clattering into the street. Valdoreme was standing with her back against the door. Tenise, fluttering her helpless little hands before her, tottered shrieking to the broken window. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... thinkes I so should terme them) and the reuerence Of the graue Wearers. O, the Sacrifice, How ceremonious, solemne, and vn-earthly It was i'th' Offring? Cleo. But of all, the burst And the eare-deaff'ning Voyce o'th' Oracle, Kin to Ioues Thunder, so surpriz'd my Sence, That ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the chain of banks, whose defalcations have accomplished more in causing property to change hands than the lances of the moss-troopers. The young Laird of Whitethorn held money in the shape of his father's shares in one of those unlucky banks; and so it fell upon him one morning like a clap of thunder that he was responsible for about as much as the acres of Whitethorn would retrieve, besides the trifling morsel to whet his appetite in the loss of his loose thousands. Harry Jardine was likely to know himself as "landless, landless," as ever ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... linger in detail upon them all, and can but mention George H. Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," stern as war, firm as granite, the bravest of knights; William T. Sherman, audacious, fertile, perhaps the most brilliant of them all; and Philip H. Sheridan, an organized thunder-storm, with the swiftness of the war eagle, impetuous, loving adventure, ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... to their feet they were somewhat alarmed at the appearance of the sky. It was overspread with dark, threatening clouds, from which issued rumbling peals of thunder and arrowy lines of lightning. They became darker and more tumultuous each moment, until semi-darkness ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... was an intrusion on the stillness. And always it was followed by a deep breath of relief that sighed round the ring like a faint wind through a plantation of larches. When Bobby scored, the tumult broke out like a crash of thunder; but it subsided again, echoless, to that intense silence so soon ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... structure, whose remoteness seemed to secure it from immediate danger. At this distance, the roaring of the flames resembled that of a thousand furnaces. Ever and anon, it was broken by a sound like thunder, occasioned by the fall of some mighty edifice. Then there would come a quick succession of reports like the discharge of artillery, followed by a shower of fiery flakes and sparks blown aloft, like the explosion of some stupendous firework. Mixed with the roaring of the flames, the thunder ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... further on these obscure petty burghers Than they could do elsewhere. Hark! nearer still! I'll to the secret passage, which communicates With the——No! all is silent—'twas my fancy!— Still as the breathless interval between The flash and thunder:—I must hush my soul Amidst its perils. Yet I will retire, To see if still be unexplored the passage I wot of: it will serve me as a den Of secrecy for some hours, at the worst. 640 [WERNER draws a panel, and exit, closing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... now. I remember well when they was first gathering them up for the war. We used to hear the cannon often. Was I afraid? To be sure I was scared, right at first. Pretty soon we got used to it. Somebody even made up a song, 'Listen to the Home-made Thunder'. They'd sing it every time ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... a great oak-tree, shivering it to splinters, and flying on into the woods, cutting off branches, and falling to the ground at last with a heavy thug! ploughing a deep furrow and burying itself out of sight. There was a roar of thunder rolling along the river-banks, echoing from woodland to woodland. Then the heavy eleven-inch gun of the Essex jumped up from the deck, took a leap backwards, almost jerking the great iron ringbolts from the sides of the ship, coming down with a jar which made her quiver from stem ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... gaps in the stone walls. The fields turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came up over Karva and ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... heard, with varied sounds, thro' all the village. The humming wheel, the thrifty housewife's tongue, Who scolds to keep her maidens at their work, Rough grating cards, and voice of squaling children Issue from every house.—— But, hark!—the sportsman from the neighb'ring hedge His thunder sends!—loud bark each village cur; Up from her wheel each curious maiden starts, And hastens to the door, whilst matrons chide, Yet run to look themselves, in spite of thrift, And all the little ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... pickpocket as a thimble-rigger at Greenwich might pass muster were it not for the rencontre with the apple-woman's son near Salisbury. The Dingle episode may be accepted, for Mr John Sampson has verified even the famous thunder-storm by means of the local press. Isopel Berners is not so easy to settle; yet the picture of her is so convincing, and Borrow was unable to do more than colour his narrative, that she too ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... coming this way. The chief Mokandira convoyed us hither: I promised him a cloth if I came across from Lomame. He wonders much at the underground houses, and never heard of them till I told him about them. Many of the gullies which were running fast when we came were now dry. Thunder began, and a few drops of ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... looking anxiously out of the window, as if he feared some thunder-storm would suddenly shut out the clear light of this beautiful morning. "I don't know—perhaps I may be back before—but at any rate we meet at ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... the still, hot air of the room began to vibrate with the tremulous thunder of the sound for which Hunnicott had been so long straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and he hurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of the stair he ran blindly against ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... "Name of thunder! What else do you suppose? Pray, my dear Dominique, use your wits. We have to gain time, I tell you—time for our friends ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... looked up over the western horizon, there was a sudden thunder, and all at once the sky above Gallipoli rained screaming shells and death. You can imagine—at any rate remembering Antwerp, I could very well imagine—how that hurricane of fire, sweeping in without ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... bridge, and which advanced thence to the church without the bars of the new temple, London. In the year one thousand cl, so strong was the ice, that the Thames could be crossed over by people on horseback. In the [Sidenote: The iiij^{th} year of king John.] year one thousand ccij such great rains, thunder and hail fell, that quadrangular stones, to the bigness of eggs descended from the sky mixt with rain; by which trees, vines, and cornfields were much destroyed; men were bruised, and birds flying through the air seemed [Sidenote: The same year.] to bear lighted coals ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous

... which followed our arrival at Bieliki was, I think, the most sleepless I have ever experienced. So thoroughly tired was I, that the deafening crashes of thunder, the forked lightning, and the deluge of rain, which poured in torrents through the tent, might have passed unheeded, but for the mass of minute life, which defied sleep. With early dawn I wandered off, too glad to escape ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... an anxious frown on his forehead. A moment later a sudden gust of wind struck the boat, heeling it so far to one side that they had to grip the rail and each other to keep from falling, while the vivid flash of lightning, followed by a low, ominous roll of thunder, made them draw ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... Kostia; he is devoted to him even to fanaticism. It is certain that having discovered that the Countess Olga was enceinte, he had the barbarity to become her denouncer; and that letter which announced to Count Kostia his dishonor, that letter which made him return from Paris like a thunder-clap, that letter in short which caused the death of Olga Vassilievna, was written by ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... were equally awe-struck at the time; both, on the morrow, resolved to paint their first pictures; both failed; but Haydon, always incapable of acknowledging and remaining loyal to the majesty of what he had seen, lost himself in vulgar thunder and lightning. Prout struggled to some resemblance of the actual scene, and the effect upon his mind was ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Grande Coulee is like an immense roofless ruin, extending north and south for fifty miles. Strange forms of rock are scattered over the great bare plain. To the Indians, it is the home of evil spirits. They say there are rumblings in the earth, and that the rocks are hot, and smoke. Thunder and lightning, so rare elsewhere on the western coast, are here more common. The evidences of volcanic action are everywhere apparent,—in the huge masses and curious columns of basaltic and trap-rock, the lava-beds through which the rivers have found their way, and the powdery alkaline ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... to find her son studying Caesar for dear life, and all the more amiable for the little gust which had blown away the temporary irritability. The brothers were often called "Thunder and Lightning," because Frank lowered and growled and was a good while clearing up, while Jack's temper came and went like a flash, and the air was all the clearer for the escape of dangerous electricity. Of course Mamma had to stop and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... sentry, here, who in thunder that insolent bounder is. By Jingo! I have half a mind to go after him and tweak his pigtail soundly. Why, he looked at us as though we were dirt beneath his feet— as though we had no business to be alive. Confound ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... to see what was upon them. They heard the yell, the shot, the soft thunder of many galloping feet, and they made for their horses. Some got away straddling the crupper, some embracing their steeds about the neck. After them galloped the regiment from Storm, bellowing and braying, with its rearguard of two boys and a girl ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... imitation of what was going on in the drawing-room. It seemed like a first performance which had long been eagerly expected, arousing the same eager excitement among the players and the public. The day which had started bright grew dark; for a long time there were threatenings of a thunder-storm; but none looked on this as an evil omen. All were inclined to cheery views. The courtiers displayed their zeal with all the ardor, the passion, the furia francese, which is a national characteristic, and appears on ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... waves, each several hundred feet high. This seemed the crisis of his fate; he shut his eyes, as people do when they are touched by a dentist, and in a few minutes was still bounding on the ocean in the eternal canoe, safe but senseless. Some tremendous peals of thunder, a roaring wind, and a scathing lightning confirmed his indisposition; and had not the tempest subsided, Popanilla would probably have been an idiot for life. The dead and soothing calm which succeeded this tornado called him back again gradually to existence. He opened his eyes, and, scarcely ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... and try and make her understand what the wonderful wild water was like, which was not quiet and sluggish and dusky as this canal was, but was forever changing and moving, and curling and leaping, and making itself now blue as her eyes, now black as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow that the winter wind tossed, now pearl hued and opaline as the convolvulus that ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... is given to the brothers James and John. Jesus surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder. There must have been a meaning in such a name given by Jesus himself. Perhaps the figure of thunder suggests capacity for energy—that the soul of John was charged, as it were, with fiery zeal. It appears to us, as we read John's writings, that this could not have been true. He ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... quantities of heavy ice driving in with the flood and out again with the ebb tide, which ran at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, forcing up the ice and grinding it against the rocks, causing a noise resembling thunder. On the 24th the party succeeded in making Repulse Bay, and cast anchor within eight miles of the head of the bay under shelter of a small island. Here Doctor Rae found some Esquimaux Indians, with whom he quickly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... towards the St. Charles, where vessels were to meet them, and protect them as they crossed the river and attacked the town in the rear —help that never came. For Phips, impatient, spent his day in a terrible cannonading, which did no great damage to the town—or the cliff. It was a game of thunder, nothing worse, and Walley and Gering with their ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a stately crown. His helmet quatre-crested,[4] and with studs Fast riveted around he to his brows Adjusted, whence tremendous waved his crest 50 Of mounted hair on high. Two spears he seized Ponderous, brass-pointed, and that flash'd to heaven. Sounds[5] like clear thunder, by the spouse of Jove And by Minerva raised to extol the King Of opulent Mycenae, roll'd around. 55 At once each bade his charioteer his steeds Hold fast beside the margin of the trench In orderly array; the foot all arm'd Rush'd forward, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... through a gap, and followed him. Then the man began to run, and at the corner ran into a file of soldiers, who were coming into the yards. Sommers turned up the street and walked rapidly in the direction of the city. The first drops of a thunder-shower that had been lowering over the city for hours were falling, and they brought a pleasant coolness into the sultry atmosphere. That was the end! The "riot" would be drowned out ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Prussian troopers when missed the General and drove the enemy back till they found him again; though what it all meant we never knew till it was over. Then, after mighty little rest, we marched fast and far, with cannon-thunder in our ears in a constant mutter, always growing louder, until in the afternoon we came at a quickstep through a piece of woods out upon the plain by Waterloo, where they had been fighting all day. Our feet sucked in the damp ground, the wet grain brushed ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... abiding within air with its five forms—which is here called pra/n/a—and the terrible thunderbolts also spring from air (or wind) as their cause. For in the air, people say, when it manifests itself in the form of Parjanya, lightning, thunder, rain, and thunderbolts manifest themselves.—Through the knowledge of that air immortality also can be obtained; for another scriptural passage says, 'Air is everything by itself, and air is all things together. He who knows this conquers death.'—We ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... mind," shouted the Tyrolese; and loud, scornful laughter rolled like threatening thunder ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet: For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder Merciful Heaven! Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle. O but man, proud man! Drest in a little brief authority, Most ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... 12 o'clock at noon, sometimes at 1, nay at 2 and 3—long after Bagshot is gone to his committees, and little Cann to her pupils—a voice issues from the very topmost floor, from a room where there is no bell; a voice of thunder calling out "Slavey! Julia! Julia, my love! Mrs. Ridley!" And this summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that a pair of trousers enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and known ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Presently his muscles relaxed. His magnificent tail, which had again expanded to thrice its natural size, sank; he uttered a faint mew, and the next moment a sound fell on Hildegarde's ear, like the distant muttering of thunder, or the roll of the surf on a far-off sea-beach. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... could stand upright. The legend was that once a year on a certain night a sable horse and cloaked horseman rode across that great apartment, flames snorting from the horse's nostrils, and into the fireplace, disappearing with a clap of thunder. She brought me, too, an owl from the coach-houses, holding the bird by the legs firmly, her hand defended by her ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... of Leipzig, and the alliance betwixt France and Sweden, were news equally disagreeable to the Emperor. Against them he employed the thunder of imperial ordinances, and the want of an army saved France from the full weight of his displeasure. Remonstrances were addressed to all the members of the confederacy, strongly prohibiting them from enlisting troops. They retorted with explanations equally vehement, justified their conduct ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the Church, and especially to defeat the election of any but undoubted friends of the Roman Church, his friends were successful in neither attempt. The voice of the oppressed people made itself heard in thunder-tones at Blois, at Angers,[921] and elsewhere. Even in Paris—the stronghold of the Roman faith—the reformed ventured, in face of a vast numerical majority against them, to urge in the Hotel-de-Ville the insertion of their remonstrances in the "cahiers" ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... have been something prophetic in Mac's fear of thunder when he was a puppy. For, though all puppies are afraid of it, and most grown dogs for that matter, still, Mac's fear, according to Tom Jennings, his master, was more than that of the ordinary dog. That is, until the blow came. After that it was ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... fireplaces in their rooms, are to be found in many houses one or two specimens of stone axe-heads. The original use of these objects is not known to the great majority of their possessors, who regard them as teeth dropped from the jaw of the thunder-god, BALINGO. It is generally claimed that some ancestor found these stones and added them to the family treasures. A man who possesses such "teeth," carries them with him when he goes to war. The Madang chief TAMA KAJAN ODOH, mentioned in the following ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... — this time in advance of him. He stood still. In the shadow of a great bare rock he saw two staring eyes that shone like gleaming fires, now green, now red, and he knew that they were the eyes of a wolf. There was a low growl as of distant thunder. Then the moon's light shot through a rack of cloud, and he saw the form of the wolf standing out clear and black against the grey rock. He fixed an arrow to his bowstring; but at the sound of the creaking bow the wolf gave a sharp yelp and disappeared into ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... the helm; but before the vessel had answered to it, she heeled over till the water rushed over the deck. Then there came a clap like thunder, and the main-topsail, split across, was blown out of ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... horse-racing, in itself, is neither degrading nor anything else that is bad; a race is a beautiful and exhilarating spectacle, and quiet men, who never bet, are taken out of themselves in a delightful fashion when the exquisite thoroughbreds thunder past. No sensible man supposes for a moment that owners and trainers have any deliberate intention of improving the breed of horses, but, nevertheless, these splendid tests of speed and endurance undoubtedly tend indirectly ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... disagreeable and the harmful effects of the things that frighten them. Thus a sudden noise will make the child start and tremble and even scream. And all through life an unexpected and loud noise is likely to startle us. An investigation has shown that thunder is feared much more than lightning. Children will laugh at the flashes of lightning, but will cower before the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... with ruin had lowered over England: it was scattered before it discharged its thunder. So completely true is the expression on a Dutch commemorative medal, 'the breath of God has scattered them' (flavit et ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... to the bottom it emits a sound as if some one were uttering a loud sigh. The first noise it makes on its being first parted with affects the ear like a subterranean thunder. This rumbling or thundering noise continues for some time, and then decreases as the stone falls against first one hard rock and then another at a greater and a greater depth, and at length, when it has for some time been falling, the noise stops with a kind of whizzing or a hissing murmur. The ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... conjectural science is divided into natural and judicial. The first is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as change of weather, winds and storms—hurricanes, thunder, floods, earthquakes, and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Good, Mr. Boyle, and Dr. Mead pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the diversity of seasons from the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... that under better influences Charlie will redeem himself because his impulses are good and this his only vice. I can hardly blame him for what he is, because his mother did the harm. I declare to you, Rose, I sometimes feel as if I must break out against that woman and thunder in her ears that she is ruining the immortal soul for which she is ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... front. There was, however, not a whisper of war, nor anything visible except the thin, pale line like a striation on the distant hills. Then a far-off sound of thunder is heard. It is a gun. A faint puff of smoke is pointed out to us. Neither the rumble nor the transient cloudlet makes any apparent impression on the placid and wide dignity of the scene. Nevertheless, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett

... supped up: which Lazius and Wernerus make an argument of the Argonauts sailing under ground. And that vast den or hole called [3020]Esmellen in Muscovia, quae visitur horriendo hiatu, &c. which if anything casually fall in, makes such a roaring noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or warlike engine can make the like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland, with many the like. I would examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how it exonerates itself, after it hath ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... considering his labors as door-keeper over, was counting his takings by lantern light. The moon was low in the west and a little breeze was now stirring the shrubbery. It was very warm for the season and I mentally prophesied thunder showers before morning. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... near the dwelling of Acheron, and without paying any attention to the bellowing of the three heads, which was like the echo of fearful resounding thunder, he seized the dog by the legs, put his arms around his neck, and would not let him go, although the dragon tail of the animal bit him ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... 7' east, and the current had set W. N. W., three quarters of a mile an hour, since the 25th. The wind, which had been at south-east, then shifted suddenly to north, and blew fresh with squally weather; but at midnight it veered to south-east again. These changes were accompanied with thunder, lightning and rain; indications, as I feared, of the approaching north-west monsoon. We lay to, during a part of the night; and at day-break [THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER 1802] bore away again upon our ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... on the mountains still longer. The spring, which begins in April, is temperate and delightful; a sudden burst of vegetation succeeds to the long winter lethargy; the air is fresh and balmy, the sun pleasantly warm, the sky generally cloudless. In the month of May the heat increases—thunder hangs in the air—and the valleys are often close and sultry. Frequent showers occur, and the hail-storms are sometimes so violent as to kill the cattle in the fields. As the summer advances the heats increase, but the thermometer rarely reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and except in ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... visions; the appearance of a man's shadow; from fire, flame, light, or smoke; the state and condition of cities and their streets, of fields, marshes, rivers, and lands. From the appearances of the stars and planets, of eclipses, meteors, shooting stars, the direction of winds, the form of clouds, thunder and lightning and other weather incidents, they were able to forecast happenings. A number of tablets are devoted to ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'

... swelling waves of Fohla responded: the wave of Toth, the wave of Rury, and the long, slow, white, foaming wave of Cleena. O mysterious kinsmen, would that today some deed great enough could call forth the thunder of your response once again! But perhaps he is now rocked in his cradle who will hereafter rock ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... Man in his anger, Lightning flashing, thunder-throwing, Loosed the frost and fanged the famine, Thorned the bushes, pinched the berries, Put the bitter in the buckeye, Rocked the mountains to their summits, Flung the hills into the valleys, Sank the lakes and shoaled the rivers, Poured the fresh ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London

... a great storm of rain, thunder and lightning, the cock took shelter in a little empty cottage, and shut to the door; and he thought: "I am clever; I am in comfort. What fools people are to top out in a storm like this! What's that?" thought he. "I never heard a ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... the day whose edge for kings made keen Smote sharper once than ever storm-wind blew, A head predestined for the girdling green That laughs at lightning all the seasons through, Nor frost or change can sunder Its crown untouched of thunder Leaf from least leaf of all its leaves that grew Alone for brows too bold For storm to sear of old, Elect to shine in time's eternal view, Rose on the verge of radiant life Between the winds and sunbeams mingling ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... libraries—not venturing to let their people know of the existence of such "helps," much less that they are in the habit of cutting out their sermons by such patterns. Moreover, as for the preaching of other men's sermons outright, the Americans are such a reading people, that the detection of borrowed "thunder," is almost certain to follow its use. An instance in point was then fresh in the public mind, in which one of the most eloquent and popular pulpit orators in the land, had been arraigned before an ecclesiastical tribunal, on the charge of appropriating ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... The thunder of the chase could be heard now, and we could see that it was Loveless leading, on his black, with Means and the Colonel close behind and the wart-hog some forty yards ahead. The beast was running strong. His huge snout was thrust forward, and his ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and returns. At last It leaps the line at a single bound From the fair Wiwaste's sturdy arm Like a fawn that flies from the baying hound. The wild cheers broke like a thunder storm On the beetling bluffs and the hills profound, An echoing, jubilant sea of sound. Wakawa, the chief, and the loud acclaim Announced the end of the hard-won game, And the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... had laid my scheme for the setting up my tent, and making the cave, that a storm of rain falling from a thick, dark cloud, a sudden flash of lightning happened, and after that, a great clap of thunder, as is naturally the effect of it. I was not so much surprised with the lightning, as I was with a thought, which darted into my mind as swift as the lightning itself: O my powder! My very heart sunk within me when I thought, that at one blast, all my powder might be destroyed; on which, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... thing in which Old Coonrod stood really in fear, something not made or controlled by man. It was lightning. Whenever a heavy thunder-storm broke over the mountains Coonrod, even in the last years of his life when he had grown so fat, ran with all the speed he could command for the cave above the spring, Here he would stay, muttering and unapproachable, ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... manuscripts, which have been found at Herculaneum, and Pompei, and which scholars at Portici are employed to decipher, are all that remain to give us information of those unhappy victims, whom the Volcano, that thunder-bolt of earth, has destroyed. But in passing near those ashes, which art has succeeded in reanimating, we are afraid to breathe lest a breath should carry away that dust where noble ideas are perhaps ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... we went overboard, but why, in the name of all the fiends, did you make so foul a leap, bringing us into such imminent peril?" The gleam of his eyes was no longer visible, but I marked the rise of his great shoulders, his voice rumbling angrily, like distant thunder, as ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... rose, proceeded to the door. A bank of purple cloud swept above the west range, opened in the sky like a gigantic, menacing fist; the greenery of the valley was overcast, and a white flash of lightning, accompanied by a shattering peal of thunder, stabbed viciously at the earth. There was no rain. An edge of serene light followed in the west a band of saffron radiance that widened until the cloud had vanished beyond the eastern peaks. The sultry heat lay like a blanket ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... what no one can understand yet, I suppose," said Mr. Eildon, "but they don't always look as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, as they are doing to-day. What do you say to thunder?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... that night, you will be single and miserable all your life. If you dream of thunder and lightning, your life will be one of great difficulty ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... more impressive than any applause. But after the silence came a deluge of cheers, the thunder of them sweeping up and down the long table like a summer storm across ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... Greek-fire of the righteous indignation of a loyal people is fast shattering the offspring of his infamous teachings,—the armed treason of the South, and its more cowardly ally the insidious treachery that lurks under doubtful cover in the loyal States. In thunder tones do the masses declare, that now and for ever, they repudiate the Treason and despise the Traitor. Nobly are the hands of our Honest President sustained in prosecuting this most ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... 'Whar in thunder did that come from?' he demanded, dropping the implement, catching up the rifle, and ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... O woman, 't is the reverberating thunder that, echoing, rolls for ever after unceasing in ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... chuse, Arm'd with Hell flames and fury, all at once O'er Heavens high tow'rs to force resistless way, Turning our tortures into horrid arms Against the Torturer; when to meet the Noise Of his almighty Engine he shall hear Infernal Thunder, and for Lightning see Black fire and horror shot with equal rage Among his Angels; and his throne it self Mixt with Tartarean Sulphur, and strange ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... it is more drastic than ours, as it would eliminate one part or the other. A man may aim as high as Beethoven or as high as Richard Strauss. In the former case the shot may go far below the mark; in truth, it has not been reached since that "thunder storm of 1828" and there is little chance that it will be reached by anyone living today, but that matters not, the shot will never rebound and destroy the marksman. But, in the latter case, the shot may often hit ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... Chief Thunder-Cloud is very welcome," Kars responded to the interpreter's translation of the introduction. "Guess he's the big chief of Bell River. The wise man of his people. And I'm sure he's come right along to talk—in the interests of peace. Good. We're right here for peace, too. Maybe ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... poor fellow was going on in perfect security, because he felt that it would be so easy for him to give up, and supposed it would be just as easy for her. I don't suppose he had a misgiving, and it must have come upon him like a thunder-clap." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... dog-eared. Looking through that old physical geography was like a first talk with a long-lost friend. It had, indeed, been my old friend. Behind its broad back I had eaten forbidden apples, I had aimed and discharged the blow-gun, I had reveled in blood-and-thunder tales that made the drowsy schoolroom fade before the vast wilderness, the scene of breathless struggles between Indian and settler, or open into the high seas where pirate, or worse-than-pirate Britisher, struck flag to American ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... are trampled over by the fleeing host, they turn and mingle with the frightened mob in one struggling, terror-stricken mass! Come, let us be into the projectile and after them. With a few booming shots above their heads, we will make them think their Thunder-gods have come!" ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... into the hook in a blaze of temper, hurt and unreasonable, and striding to the rear window flung it up to cool his face. There were bouillon cups upon the sill. Bouillon cups! Bouillon cups! Thunder-and-turf! There were bouillon cups everywhere. Nobody but Brian would have bought so many handles. A future of handles loomed drearily ahead. Brian could talk of disorder all he chose. Half of it was bouillon cups. Bitterly resenting the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... have tingled With the discord notes of shame; We, whose sires their blood have mingled In the battle's thunder-flame,— Gathering, while this holy morning Lights the land from sea to sea, Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; Trust us while we ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... under State organisation the practice of opening up those romantic and circular caverns in the middle of the pavement and suddenly filling our cellars with smoke, rain and thunder will be allowed to continue. Rather, I expect, at the moment when John Postman pushes the budget of bills through the slit in the front-door, William Coalman, walking along the roof, will be dropping a couple of Derby Brights, in the mode of Santa Claus, down the chimney. This will get over the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... alarm the mind where a billowy green undulation will lull it. The Downs change their complexion, but are never other than soothing and still: no stress of weather produces in them any of that sense of fatality that one is conscious of in Westmoreland. Thunder-clouds empurple the turf and blacken the hangers, but they cannot break the imperturbable equanimity of the line; rain throws over the range a gauze veil of added softness; a mist makes them more wonderful, unreal, romantic; snow brings them to one's doors. At sunrise ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... thee dare,' said Mr. Tyson, in a voice of thunder, 'but thee dare not, coward as thou art, for well does thee know, that the gallows would be ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... to be camped at timberline above Allen's Park when the big forest fire set the region south of it ablaze. From my lofty station I watched a thunder shower gather around Long's Peak and move southward, tongues of lightning darting from it venomously. It was perhaps ten miles wide. It circled Wild Basin, then faced eastward toward the foothills, its forked tongues writhing wickedly. Those to the south struck repeatedly; ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... thunder are ye driving at?" growled the no less astonished Sut, as the flame was almost brought against his face. "Do yer take me for a kag of powder, and do ye want to touch ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... possible that a few hours later the thunder would roll over the island itself. The night was very threatening. But however deep the darkness was, it would not prevent them from finding the familiar ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... swords and the sharp rattle of blows struck at helmet and breast-piece; the plunging of horses, yells, and shouts; the deep groans of wounded men; and then, in the midst of the wild turmoil and hopeless struggle, it seemed to Fred that there was a short sharp crash of thunder, accompanied by a mingling of tiny flashes of lightning, and then the noise and confusion of the skirmish ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus—harbinger of light alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with them, Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away there in the house of the ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... for it has determinate antecedents in the brain and senses and determinate consequents in actions and words. But this dependence and this efficacy have nothing logical about them; they are habitual collocations in the world, like lightning and thunder. A more minute inspection of psycho-physical processes, were it practicable, would doubtless disclose undreamed of complexities and harmonies in them; the mathematical and dynamic relations of stimulus and sensation might perhaps be formulated with ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sunk on a hay-cock; and John (who never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together, to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... treasure, Whilst Rakush and my sword, my conquering sword, Were all the aid I had, and all I sought, In that prodigious enterprise of mine. Two sisters thou released—no arduous task, Whilst I recovered from the demon's grasp The mighty Kaus, and the monsters slew, Roaring like thunder in their ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... Isabel, as she got into the pony-cart; "what is the matter? Her face looked like the sky when thunder ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... Thunder pealed and lightning quivered, Gusts a prison's casements shivered. From its dungeon rose a scream, Where, awakened by the gleam, From his pallet rose and ran, Wild with fear, a stalwart man. Saw he in his tortured sleep, Things that make the heart-veins creep? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... winding in peaceful and silver streams. There no harsh and boisterous winds are permitted to shake and disturb the air, and ravage the beauty of the groves; there prevails no melancholy, nor darksome weather, no drowning rain, nor pelting hail; no forked lightning, nor rending and resounding thunder; no wintry pinching cold, nor withering and panting summer heat; nor any thing else that can give pain or sorrow or annoyance; but all is bland and gentle and serene; a perpetual youth and joy reigns throughout all nature, and nothing ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... Dat's when you do right. But when you was a low-down nigger an' got de debbil in yer, an' ole marsa hear it an' send de oberseer to de quarters for you to come to de little room in de big house whar de walls was all books an' whar his desk was, 't wa'n't no birds about his voice den,—mo' like de thunder." ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... had broken loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... he thought at daybreak, he found that it was half-past seven, that the rain was streaming down, and that the wind kept striking the side of the house, as it came from over the great Atlantic, with a noise like thunder. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not only by the Government but by all the "moderate" Socialists. The Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of the Trade Unions, the Peasants' ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... have profess'd themselves for the Modest Man, even in the utmost Confusions of Speech and Countenance, why should an intrepid Utterance and a resolute Vociferation thunder so successfully in our Courts of Justice? And why should that Confidence of Speech and Behaviour, which seems to acknowledge no Superior, and to defy all Contradiction, prevail over that Deference and Resignation with which the Modest Man implores ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... name of thunder what does all this mean?" Ratoneau's looks had changed to sudden fury. "Are these copies or originals? Simon, you ass, do you mean ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... quickness and artless manner, gained upon the count, who was ever alive to helplessness and innocence. Children and animals had always found a friend and protector in him. From the "majestic war-horse, with his neck clothed in thunder," to "the poor beetle that we tread upon"—every creature of creation met an advocate of mercy in his breast; and as human nature is prone to love what it has been kind to, Thaddeus never saw either children, dogs, or even that poor slandered and abused animal, the cat, without showing them some ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which the Spaniards had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the water with wings, and uttered a dreadful sound, resembling thunder, accompanied with lightning and smoke, struck the natives with such terror that they began to respect their new guests as a superior order of beings, and concluded that they were children of the sun, who had descended to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... the irrevocability of the laws of nature—was man alone to be exempt from them? No. The time would come when it would be as obsolete an absurdity to talk of the temptation of a fiend, as it was now to talk of the wehrwolf, or the angel of the thunder-cloud. The metaphor might remain, doubtless, as a metaphor, in the domain of poetry, whose office was to realize, in objective symbols, the subjective ideas of the human intellect; but philosophy, and the pure sentiment ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... with the boat and pinnesse into the riuer with their commodities. This day was close and drowsie, with thunder, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... now on the beak,[379-57] Now in the waist,[380-58] the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'd divide, And burn in many places; on the top-mast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,[380-59] Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary[380-60] And sight-outrunning were not: the fire, and cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble. Yea, his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... their life, and an apparently lifeless bee may be revived by warming him. I have also picked them up while rowing on the river and seen them safely to shore. It is amusing to see them come hurrying home when there is a thunder-storm approaching. They come piling in till the rain is upon them. Those that are overtaken by the storm doubtless weather it as best they can in the sheltering trees or grass. It is not probable that a bee ever gets lost by wandering into ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... the character of the bank surrounding the hilly island of Old Providence, with those banks in its neighbourhood which stand isolated, will scarcely doubt that they surround submerged mountains. We are led to the same conclusion by examining the bank called Thunder Knoll, which is separated from the Great Mosquito Bank by a channel only seven miles wide, and 145 fathoms deep. There cannot be any doubt that the Mosquito Bank has been formed by the accumulation of sediment round the promontory of the same name; and Thunder Knoll ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin

... lieutenant in the 13th U. S. Infantry. He resigned in 1862 and went into the Confederacy through the blockade from Nassau. He was charged with having been the principal witness against Captain Dayton, who was executed at Castle Thunder, Richmond, on the charge of being a spy. He was arrested on ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... infuriated elephant, and whose eyes are like the leaves of the lotus, this Kamyaka forest doth not seem beautiful to me. Remembering that hero capable of drawing the bow with his left hand, and the twang of whose bow sounds like the roar of thunder, I cannot feel any happiness, O king!' And, O monarch, hearing her lament in this strain, that slayer of hostile heroes, Bhimasena, addressed Draupadi in these words, 'O blessed lady of slender waist, the agreeable words thou utterest delight ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... fortune, and beauty and fashion, and every thing in their favour, cannot (as yet in this country) dispense with the strictest observance of the rules of virtue and decorum. Some have fancied themselves raised so high above the vulgar as to be in no danger from the thunder and lightning of public opinion; but these ladies in the clouds have found themselves mistaken—they have been blasted, and have fallen nobody knows where! What is become of Lady ——, and the Countess of ——, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... almost terrifying, the storm broke over the ocean about three o'clock that morning. There was a terrific clap of thunder, a flash of lighting, and a deluge of rain that fairly made the staunch Falcon stagger, high in ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton



Words linked to "Thunder" :   noise, howl, heroin, smack, storm, diacetylmorphine, shout, street name, move



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