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Thunderous   Listen
adjective
Thunderous  adj.  
1.
Producing thunder. (R.) "How he before the thunderous throne doth lie."
2.
Making a noise like thunder; sounding loud and deep; sonorous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thunderous" Quotes from Famous Books



... skimmed along the treetops in the distance and disappeared from sight. Then there was a thunderous crash, a tearing of wood and foliage, and a ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... the whole church. It grew deeper and deeper, expanded, swelled into heavy bursts of thunder; and then all at once, turning into heavenly music, its ringing tones floated high among the arches, like clear maiden voices, and again descended into a deep roar and thunder, and then ceased. The thunderous pulsations echoed long and tremulously among the arches; and Andrii, with half-open mouth, admired the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... great, but his eloquence was by no means rousing, and I well remember that when he pleaded for my father, the three judges of the Appeal Court composed themselves to sleep, and did not awaken until the counsel opposed to us started banging his fist and shouting in thunderous tones. Naturally enough, as the judges never heard our side of the case, but only our ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... a hurricane of thunderous cheers at this sally, but Grim managed to shout above the laughing, "I have great pleasure in announcing that John Acton, Esq., will take Fruity's—I mean Cherry's—place and tell you a little tale; even Corker fags will understand it," ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... spectators silent and waiting. Six thousand feet above the valley floor green and orange slopes run to the edges of perennial ice-fields, while farther away, and peering above these almost inaccessible defences, like tents of besieging Titans, rise three great mountains gleaming with snow and thunderous with storms. Altogether a stage worthy of some colossal drama rather than the calm slumber ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... which carpet their own fair land after the rains; but side by side the unconcealed hatred of the religious world of their time. In each case, the brief sunny hours of service were soon succeeded by the rolling up of the thunderous clouds, and these by the murderous tempest of deadly hatred, even unto death: "Their dead bodies lay in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt." In each case, there was a little ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... current can be estimated. The tympanum of the ear yields to the fierce external pressure. The brain feels and multiplies the intolerable tension as if the interior was clamped in a vice, and that tumultuous, thunderous torrent pours on. Involuntarily the mouth opens: the air rushes in the Eustachian tube, and with sudden velocity strikes the intruded tension of the drum, which snaps back to its normal state with a sharp, pistol-like crack. The strain is momently relieved ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... cursing and blaspheming like a fiend. Then he fired the fuse, climbed out of the shaft, and ran fifty yards away, Fetlock following. They stood waiting a few minutes, then a great volume of smoke and rocks burst high into the air with a thunderous explosion; after a little there was a shower of descending stones; then ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain

... cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as the girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke's view of the case, walked homeward by the lonely ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... glistened beautifully in the red light of the dying fire the sleeping sentry ought to have seen to, but had not. Moreover, it did not come alone, for the camp was a white hunter's camp. The dog gave a thunderous baying rally-call, and almost before that sentry had leapt to his feet, the ratel vanished tumultuously and suddenly from the public gaze, under a perfect cloud of dogs. He was, ere any one knew what the riot might be, literally smothered under ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... so bright a sun! such blindness to what is so patent! such a deaf ear to the roaring of that thunderous harmony which you call the eternal silence!—you of the earth, earthy, who can hear the little trumpet of the mosquito so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. Then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... door was unlatched, and within stood the Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron, and looking thunderous. But when she saw who it was, her countenance and manner ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... being admitted, and the lion, raising his head, uttered a low growl, which had something distantly thunderous in the tone. Being apparently satisfied that the Don was a friend, it again laid its chin on its paws and ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... to delight his people—the greatest and best of Caesars would grant them the spectacle of his most precious pet. Loud clapping of hands and thunderous shouts of applause greeted the entrance of the magnificent cage which was drawn out into the arena by sixteen negro slaves. The bars of the cage were gilded, and it was surmounted by the imperial standard and the insignia of imperial rank. Its pedestal was of carved wood ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... was on the brink of disaster, and yet he found himself shuddering at the colorless fate to which his complacence might have condemned him. To have gone on forever in a state of drowsy contentment ... to have been surrounded on all sides by the thunderous cataracts of life and caught only the pretty significance of rainbows through the spray ... to have remained untouched by any and every primitive impulse and feeling—he could not now imagine anything more tragic. And yet, to-morrow, people would ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... blinding heat and glare, made actual only by poignant anxiety as to the length of her green skirt. The hope that she might be unrecognisable was shattered by the yell of "More power, Miss Fanny!" that crested the thunderous encore evoked by her hornpipe with Captain Carteret, and the question of the skirt was decided by the fact that her aunts, in the front row, firmly perused their programmes from the beginning of her ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... so passed in the darkness without a word, and came to the top of the beach. There was light enough to make out what was doing. The sea was running very high, but with the falling wind the waves came in more leisurely and with less of broken water, curling over in a tawny sweep and regular thunderous beat all along the bay for miles. There was no sign left of the hull of the Aurungzebe, but the beach was strewn with so much wreckage as one would have thought could never come from so small a ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... door open and bounded out to the deck. Just as he did so the pilot leaped from the front window of the pilot house, climbed over the rail and dropped to the deck below. The volleying, the thunderous blows still continued. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... wound its way along the bank of the Niagara. On the right were high cliffs, thickly wooded; on the left a precipice, whose base was fretted by the furious river. In the ears of the soldiers and drivers sounded the thunderous roar of the mighty cataract. As men and horses threaded their way past the Devil's Hole savage yells burst from the thick wood on their right, and simultaneously a fusillade from a hundred muskets. ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... I nearly died of fear, but remained upright, though mute and paralysed by that thunderous voice. I gradually recovered, began at the beginning, and gave a clear account of myself—how I had been possessed with curiosity about the heavens, had gone to the philosophers, found their accounts conflicting, and grown tired of being logically rent in twain; so I came to my great ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... to listen to Beekstein—Secretary of Education—straighten out the involved syntax or track an elusive x to its secret lair. In the afternoon he could not practice on the diamond with them, learning the trick of holding elusive flies or teaching himself to face thunderous outshoots at ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... accept an unfair wage. His voice quivered with exasperation; his heavy frame shook with rage; his eyes were injected, bloodshot; his face flamed vermilion, while his deep bass rumbled throughout the running comments of his auditors like the thunderous reverberation of diapason. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... that can be created even by a kitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of Krakatoa when it began ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... night was shattered, and the hum of the encampment behind them with the roar of the city before them was dwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace of the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath mastering them with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himself stirred uneasily ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... have passed muster as a literary composition, but their extreme appropriateness to the occasion, combined with the action of the hockey-sticks, completely brought down the house. The applause was thunderous, and the last verse was encored twice over. Undoubtedly it was the hit of ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... to the face of the earth you may read in the geographies, but not what they do to our contemporaries. I remember one night of thunderous rain made unendurably mournful by the houseless cry of a cougar whose lair, and perhaps his family, had been buried under a slide of broken boulders on the slope of Kearsarge. We had heard the heavy detonation of the slide about the hour of the alpenglow, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... have seen much of the wonders and glories of the world, vasty deserts, trackless forests, stupendous mountains, mighty rivers, and yet—and yet what more wonderful than this little island of ours, what more tenderly beautiful than our green, English countryside? The thunderous roar of plunging cataracts, the cloud-capped pinnacles of mighty mountains may fill the soul with awed and speechless wonder, but for pure joy give me an English coppice of a summer evening when blackbird and thrush are calling, or to sit and hearken to the immemorial ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... in the crowd increased to a roar, a thunderous call for Grayson, but there was a pause on the stage, where no figures moved. The chairman glanced uneasily towards the wings and shuffled in his seat as if he did not know what to do, but his apprehension did not ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... pole, and from clime to clime, Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;— A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words, And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming, A tread as if all the world were coming. And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet Call'd into music those terrible feet, Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round To the burn of their speed with a golden sound; With a golden sound, and a swift ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... of Esparto grass—and again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... "There should be a bridge," he called, and ran along the cleft a distance. "It is here," he cried, and remounting, led the way. In a few moments Armstrong, heard a sound as though a thunderous drum were beating somewhere in the dark. It was the falling of the mules' hoofs upon the bridge made of strong hides lashed to poles and stretched across the chasm. Half a mile further was Tacuzama. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard The grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands With flawless demonstration: followed then A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever: then we dipt in all That treats of whatsoever is, the state, The ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... descendant of the mad Carew, with whose wild exploits the country side still teems. If the old blood shows itself, it is but in quick starts of temper, and occasional "cursory remarks," which sound quite harmless in halls that have echoed to the Squire's thunderous tones; and even at such times Agnes can calm him with a word. If the open hand which is Bred in the Bone with him scatters its largesse somewhat broadcast, the revenues of Crompton, thanks to her, are in the main directed to good ends. In that stately mansion, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... the upper air, and the thunderous echoes reverberated through the mountains, the work on the plain went rapidly forward. However the scholars and the theologians might decide the questions at issue between them, the working forces were profoundly convinced that the Gospel was the great need of the world, and they put out ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... year of war. I heard the New-Year's chorus when I went to see the last of the year across the battlefields. Our guns did not let it die in silence. It went into the tomb of the past, with all its tragic memories, to thunderous salvos, carrying death with them. The "heavies" were indulging in a special strafe this New—Year's eve. As I went down a road near the lines by Loos I saw, from concealed positions, the flash of gun upon gun. The air was swept by an incessant rush ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... world seemed to whirl past them in one huge, green cataract. The sound of all these oceans boomed in their ears for one eternal instant. Nothing was for that moment but a vast roar and pour of waters. Thence they swung into a silence equally vast, and so sudden that it was as thunderous in the comparison as was the elemental rage they quitted. For a time they sat panting, staring at each other, holding each other, lest not only their lives but their very souls should be swirled away ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... in enslaving the Russian workers and driving several millions of them to death on the battlefield. Now should the Russian workers consider themselves bound by this debt? When anybody asked Jimmie Higgins that question, he responded with a thunderous "No", and he regarded as hirelings or dupes of Wall Street all those Socialists who supported ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... glare of light burst upward through the white-glowing mist; and the 'plane reeled with the air-wave, as now a thunderous concussion boomed across the empty spaces of ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... the porter took a turn along the platform and peered curiously through the dusty window; a luggage train rattled slowly past, an express whizzed by with thunderous din. The station clock struck the quarter, and still the problem was as ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Mid-Winter. Some powerful though small climaxes may be noticed, and then a new theme is heard softly, con tenerezza, pensieroso, over a florid accompaniment. After this has run its course, it is followed by intensely passionate outbursts of sorrow, the whole culminating in a thunderous repetition of the first theme. This reappears with great solemnity, which is emphasized by tolling, drum-like strokes, in the bass. The close is mysterious and impressive; the widespread chords, the wailing, clashing ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... which he screwed his eyes together like the man in Browning's "Christmas Eve," and opened his mouth in a long ellipse in the middle of one cheek; but neither was that the kind of entertainment she had purposed. She sat ready, against the moment when he should end, to let loose the most thunderous music in her mental repertoire, annoyed that she had but her small piano on the stage. Vanity, however, is as suspicious of vanity as hate is of hate, and Mr. Blaney, stopping abruptly in the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... to advance, was lifting his legs up and down (doing the piaffer), and sighing and groaning in agony. When the circus doors were opened and relief thus came to him, he bounded into the arena like a fury, amidst the thunderous applause of the audience! I should have liked to have seen that spur-man punished for cruelty to animals, for if the performance went on, as I believe it did, every night, that horse's near side must ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... left the table, in fact, and am on my way back to the museum, so dropped in here. Has anybody noticed the sunset to-night?" All turned to observe it (the house fronted towards the south), and simultaneously exclaimed at its grandeur. The sun was just dropping behind a thunderous bank of clouds, closely resembling a range of mountains capped with snow, now tinged ruddily with the dying light, and between these crowding peaks was an arched opening, as if a vaulted passageway had been blasted through the mass of rock, giving ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... and was bowled in attempting the most abominable of blind-swipes. He returned towards the pavilion, so far forgetting himself in his pleasure as to swing about his bat like a tennis-racket. What thunderous applause he received! It was his last term, and his last match. And I am glad that the final picture, which our memory preserves of White alive, shows us the sterling oaf departing after a glorious innings, surrounded by uproarious school-fellows, and smiling as only the righteous can. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... back a roar, and the report seemed to have loosened one of the great needles of rock which had stood up for ages on the top of a loose ridge, and now came down, bringing with it quite an avalanche of stones, with such a thunderous crash that the blacks turned and fled, yelling with horror, while Mak and Pig, who were coming from where they had been sleeping in the sunshine, dropped upon their knees, the Pig following this up by creeping among the bushes ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... they stood swaying backward and forward, clasped in one another's arms, the blood from the wounded man's breast staining the armor of both. The moment passed and then, with a shower of stones and mortar from beneath their iron-shod heels, they toppled and fell; there was a thunderous splash in the water below, and as the men-at-arms came hurrying up and peered with awe-struck faces over the parapet of the bridge, they saw the whirling eddies sweep down with the current of the stream, a few bubbles rise to the surface ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... o'clock we topped Sumtner Rising and looked down on the village of Sumtner Barton, which lies just across a single railway line, spanned by a red brick bridge. The thick, thunderous June airs brought us gusts of melody from a giddy-go-round steam-organ in full blast near the pond on the village green. Drums, too, thumped and banners waved and regalia flashed at the far end of the broad village street. Mr. Lingnam ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... athwart Heav'n ran the high barricades, And giant Bastilles reeled, impossibly smitten, And men with broken hands swung thunderous blades In "Russia's wrath"—just as you've often written; Yea, the terrific tyrants really reeled, While CHESTERTON sat ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... long to wait; the dust cloud rapidly thickened, and the low rumbling beat of hoofs on the hard dry soil of the hill crest quickly increased in volume until it became like the thunderous roar of surf upon a rock-bound shore, mingled with the continuous cries of a countless host of animals all herded together under the influence of some mysterious but powerful influence. And presently the advance guard of the great army appeared against the skyline ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... found a place, and the talking had stopped, he presently gave out his text, in a slow thunderous voice, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... after this thunderous denunciation. The jury turned eagerly to the leaves of the hymn-books, but the larger gaze of the audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the girl, who sat in rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, the Colonel continued in a lower and sadder voice: "There are, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... canyon, and a creel full of trout. There was no difficulty in finding the river, or in descending the steep precipice to its bed: getting into a scrape is usually the easiest part of it. The river is strewn with bowlders, big and little, through which the amber water rushes with an unceasing thunderous roar, now plunging down in white falls, then swirling round in dark pools. The day, already past meridian, was delightful; at least, the blue strip of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... given way to barren rocks, snow-capped peaks, and ice-filled clefts. No life seemed possible there, the wide distant blue above had shown no bird nor shadow of bird passing. There was no voice of insect nor the least of Nature's children here. Between the thunderous crash of the ice-falls that seemed to shiver the golden air there ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... tipsy. For one brief moment a sense of the ludicrous struggled with the just anger of the mob. That moment decided the fate of Jocko. There came a thunderous rap at the door, and there stood a policeman with Jim, the runaway, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... and crash some of the noble pines. During the storm season sheep herders and woodsmen generally did not camp under the pines. Fear of lightning was inborn in the natives, but for Ellen the dazzling white streaks or the tremendous splitting, crackling shock, or the thunderous boom and rumble along the battlements of the Rim had no terrors. A storm eased her breast. Deep in her heart was a hidden gathering storm. And somehow, to be out when the elements were warring, when the earth trembled ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... must sing in a less thunderous key; 'tis not good to mar his sleep, with this journey before him, and he so wearied out, poor chap . . . This garment—'tis well enough—a stitch here and another one there will set it aright. This other is better, albeit a stitch or two will not come amiss in it, likewise . . . THESE be very ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... been good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord—but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Thunderous cheers for "the rail-splitter" resounded, for this slur on the statesman had recoiled on aspersers and was used as a title of honor. The call for confirmation of the assertion led Lincoln to rise, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... to where on His fretted Throne * sat in the heart of His aged dominions The great Triune, and Mary nigh, * lit round with spears of their hauberked minions, The poet drew, in the thunderous blue * involved dread of ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... his lips a tongue of flame shot to the very skies. The island seemed to rock, a fierce rush of air struck Foy and shook him from the tree. Then came a dreadful, thunderous sound, and lo! the sky was darkened with fragments of wreck, limbs of men, a grey cloud of salt and torn shreds of sail and cargo, which fell here, there, and everywhere about and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... again. Going home in the cab she tried to live through the day afresh—every step, every act, every word, down to that triumphant "I will." Her thoughts swayed as with the swaying of the hansom, but sometimes the thunderous applause of the audience broke in, and then she had to remember where she had left off. She could feel that beating against her breast still, and even smell the violets that grew by the pool. He had told her to give up everything, and there was an exquisite thrill in the thought that perhaps ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... to the defaulters on their return. His way with one and all was curt and vigorous; to Waymark it seemed needlessly brutal. A woman pleading inability to make up her total sum would be cut short with a thunderous oath, and the assurance that, if she did not pay up in a day or two, every stick would be carried off. Pitiful pleading for time had absolutely no effect upon Abraham. Here and there e tenant would complain of high rent, and point out a cracked ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... thighs. He stayed at the fire for his boots to be drawn off and to put on his soft-leather shoes, while Robin stood up dutifully to await him. Then he came forward, took his seat without a word, and called for supper. In ominous silence the meal proceeded, and with the same thunderous air, when it was over, his father said grace and made his way, followed by his son, into the parlour behind. He made no motion at first to pour out his wine; then he helped himself twice and ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... from my crouching attitude, and was about half-way to the upright, when all of a sudden the world seemed to come to an end and break up into stars and giddy whirlings, accompanied by sharp pains in the back, flights through space, and terrific thunderous sounds in my very ears. I was conscious of turning a double or triple somersault, of alighting face-down on the long grass, of a heavy weight leaning upon my neck and spine, of pain, stiffness, semi-consciousness, of a continuous noise ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... on this occasion, when they mustered in their thousands at the station and lined the streets, a frantic, cheering, enthusiastic and madly joyous people, to see him back amongst them once again, neither bent nor broken nor physically spent, but gloriously erect, acknowledging the thunderous salutations of the tens of thousands who loved him, even to the little children, with a love which was surely compensation for many a bitter ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... portentous thing with a great distaste, and doubt with what altered passions we shall come out of it. The huge, rushing, aggregate life of a great city—the crushing crowds in the streets, where friends seldom meet and there are few greetings; the thunderous noise of trade and industry that speaks of nothing but gain and competition, and a consuming fever that checks the natural courses of the kindly blood; no leisure anywhere, no quiet, no restful ease, no wise repose—all this shocks us. It is inhumane. It does not seem human. How much ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson

... way the guns were busy, and at regular intervals the earth trembled, and the air vibrated with dull, thunderous shocks. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... his sentence, a thunderous knocking sounded at the front door, causing both hearers to start with astonishment. So loud, so vigorous, so long continued was the assault, that the first surprise deepened into indignation, and Pat's dark eyes sent ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... List the thunderous roar As the shot rushes by! To our war-song heroic, The chorus of joy. At the ring of the musket To the battle we fly; Come! come to the field, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... Passion and of Mirth Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Doubled-lived in regions new? —Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wonderous And the parle of voices thunderous; With the whisper of heaven's trees And one another, in soft ease Seated on Elysian lawns Browsed by none but Dian's fawns; Underneath large blue-bells tented, Where the daisies are rose-scented, And the rose herself ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... his face like a distant thunder-cloud, saying little, and not only listening to but watching the others. Curtis noticed a certain external and internal resemblance in him to Webster, who was at times a thunderous-looking person—denoting, I suppose, the electric concentration in his cranium. Emerson also watched Hawthorne, and the whole company felt his silent presence, and missed him greatly once or twice when he failed to come. Miss ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... got up on the platform. Every one could understand what HE said, and his powerful voice was heard to such a distance that even now it is remembered in the district. Following up the thunderous admonition of the execution itself, he warned the young against the vices which prevailed in the parish—against drunkenness, fighting, unchastity, and other misconduct. They must have liked the discourse very much, ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... Begum, and the hubbub of the somewhat terrified crowd, I quietly made my appearance. Scantily clad around the waist, I was otherwise unprotected by clothing. I opened the bolt on the door of the safety room and calmly locked it behind me. The tiger sensed blood. Leaping with a thunderous crash on his bars, he sent forth a fearsome welcome. The audience was hushed with pitiful fear; I seemed a meek lamb ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... outburst of flame, a thunderous report, and, without waiting to see or hear more, I sprang forward through the dense smoke, and raced madly toward the front door. Caton panted at my side, and I could hear the heavy feet of a score of men ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... appalling event serve to awaken responsibility among the wealthy and powerful toward the poor and the weak? When all goes well, when there are no thunderous warnings such as this of the helplessness of man against the forces arrayed against him, the fortunate do not realize that for millions mere existence is a poignant struggle; that hunger and cold and disease prevail even when there are no ghastly floods to ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... a spell of unbearable heat. In country places and by the seashore there was space and air, and clean fragrant surroundings; but over London hung a misty pall, and not a branch of the dusty trees quivered to the movement of a passing breeze. It was a thunderous, unnatural heat which sapped every scrap of vitality, and ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... swelled to sudden uproar, thunderous, all-possessing, overwhelming, so that she gasped and gasped again for breath. And then all in a moment she knew that the conflict was over. She was as a diver, hurling with headlong velocity from dizzy height into deep waters, and she rejoiced—she ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it moved forward to its ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... along for the exit, till suddenly an awful, inexplicable roar set all our hearts thumping fit to break our bosoms. Really, the sensation was most painful, especially as we had not the faintest idea whence the noise came or what had produced it. Again it filled that immense cave with its thunderous reverberations; but this time all the sting was taken out of it, as we caught sight of its author. A goodly bull-humpback had found his way in after us, and the sound of his spout, exaggerated a thousand times in the confinement of that mighty cavern, had frightened ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... of the confusion, a jolly old face peeped cautiously in at the door which led to the street. At the sound of Manager Hart's thunderous tones coming from the stage, however, it as promptly disappeared, only to return when the apparent danger ceased. It was a rare old figure and a rare old dress and a rare old man. Yet, not an old man either. His face was red; for he was a tavern spirit, well known and well beloved,—a lover of ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... turned to face the elements. Nothing could be seen through the thick deluge. The ocean itself, tossing and tumbling in angry darkness, seemed fighting with the other ocean that poured from the black wall above, and all was one tumult of thunderous fury. This elemental war lasted but a short time, and gave place to a quiet as sudden as its angry burst. It was my first experience of a squall. It is always difficult for me to feel that a storm is a natural occurrence,—so that I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... hour passed, and still lie wrote on, apparently unaware of the flitting time. At mid-day the bell, which had not rung since early dawn, began to swing quickly to and fro in the chapel turret,—the deep bass of the organ breathed on the silence a thunderous monotone, and a bee-like murmur of distant voices proclaimed the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... is indicated by their titles, 'Niagara' and 'Goldau,' and by the nom de plume he thought proper to publish them under, namely, 'Jehu O. Cataract.' But portions of his poetry repudiate this thunderous parentage, and are soft as the whispering zephyr or the cooing of doves. The gentleness of strength has a double beauty: its own, and that of contrast. Still, the predominating character of Neal's poetry is the sweep of the wild eagle's wing and the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... skirted for some distance; though on one mighty rock there were the ruins of a seaward-looking Temple of Hercules, with arches of the unmistakable Roman masonry, below which the receding waves rushed and poured over a jetting ledge in a thunderous cataract. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... time later it was deep in the planet's atmosphere. The noise of its rockets had become thunderous, with air to carry and ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... sight of the great ocean, and were soon flying over it. Far beneath them, the waves tossed themselves tumultuously in midsea, or rolled a white surf-line upon the long beaches, or foamed against the rocky cliffs with a roar that was thunderous, in the lower world; although it became a gentle murmur, like the voice of a baby half asleep, before it reached the ears of Perseus. Just then a voice spoke in the air close by him. It seemed to be a woman's voice, and was melodious, though not exactly what might ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... ere the twanging buzz of the bow-string died on the air. Or if it were perhaps a long, slow, painful journey through thick night, toilsome, blindly groping, wings adroop trailing against bruised heels. Or if we two must pass by hell, within sight and hearing of the thunderous darkness, and feel the rushing wind of the pit hot on ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... thee search thy coffers round Before thou cloath my fancy in fit sound: Such where the deep transported mind may scare Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'ns dore Look in, and see each blissful Deitie How he before the thunderous throne doth lie, Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings To th'touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings Immortal Nectar to her Kingly Sire: Then passing through the Spherse of watchful fire, 40 ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... attention. The boys were always shouting to one another, or yelling at their horses or at the herd or at the niggers. It did not occur to him that they might be shouting for him, until from another direction he heard Ezra's unmistakable, booming voice. Ezra sang a thunderous baritone when the niggers lifted up their voices in song around their camp-fire, and he could be heard for half a mile when he called in real earnest. He was calling now, and Buddy, stopping to listen, fancied that ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... the storm was at its height. The roaring of the wind in the wide chimney was as loud as thunder. Save for this the thunderous noise of the sea served to drown all sounds on the land. Nevertheless, in the midst of the clamour a loud rapping was heard at the front door. One of the maid-servants would have answered it, but my father called her back and, taking up a lantern, went ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... gaily said, like the supper provided for the three nursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without their thunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, 'Somebody's been drinking MY milk!' It was a delicious repast; by far the most delicious that Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer had ever made. The uncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass knobs of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... plane bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly, was flying upside down. It was under the enemy! Its ray.... Thurston was thrown a score of feet away to crash helpless into the stone coping by the thunderous crash of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... slipped the gun from his hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... billowing cloud out along the hall and up the stairs, he staggered forward. Tightly to his body he clutched the remaining vials. Where was Beatrice? He knew not. Everything boomed and echoed in his stunned ears. Below there, he heard thunderous crashes as wrecked walls and floors went reeling down. And ever, all about him, eddied ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... escape the storm was needless, for they were just getting within sight of Barvas when a surprising change came over the dark and thunderous afternoon. The hurrying masses of cloud in the west parted for a little space, and there was a sudden and fitful glimmer of a stormy blue sky. Then a strange soft yellow and vaporous light shot across to the Barvas hills, and touched up palely the great slopes, rendering them distant, ethereal and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... to do me obeisance that he rose as I entered. His dirk was drawn and his face was thunderous as he took a step forward ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... her helm again careened gently to the little gust of wind out of the west, and slid away upon her course, while the waterspout, more furious in its speed at every instant, swept past and out to sea, where it presently broke and fell with a thunderous explosion. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... Williams, when he was answered—there was a crash, the sight of rocks and sand flying, and a thunderous reverberation. ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... The thunderous cheer broke forth again. Ned had never before heard words so full of conceit and vainglory, yet the strength and menace were there. He felt it instinctively. Santa Anna believed himself to be the greatest man in the world, and he was certainly the greatest in ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sparkled ghastly amid the bursting froth. Bodies of foam flew like the flashings of pale sheet-lightning through our rigging and over us, and a dreadful roaring of mighty surges in mad career, and battling as they ran, rose out of the sea to deepen yet the thunderous bellowing of the hurricane ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... difficulty in making himself heard athwart the ponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. At first he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer and nearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... to appreciate to the full the daring exemplified in these great crushing rolls, or rather "rock-crackers," without having watched them in operation delivering their "solar-plexus" blows. It was only as one might stand in their vicinity and hear the thunderous roar accompanying the smashing and rending of the massive rocks as they disappeared from view that the mind was overwhelmed with a sense of the magnificent proportions of this operation. The enormous force exerted during this process may be illustrated from the fact that ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant. In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a cello; a still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest blue of ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky

... could they drop off to sleep except in dread that during the night the ice on which they slept, might split, even under their very pallets, and they be awakened by the deathly plunge into the icy water. Day and night they were startled and affrighted by the thunderous rumblings and cracking of the breaking floe—a sound that an experienced Arctic explorer says is the most terrifying ever heard by man, having in it something of the hoarse rumble of heavy artillery, the sharp ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... long rows of faces lining the room crackled for a moment, and then every man burst into a thunderous laugh. But I had flung to the winds my timidity of a new country, and I was not to be put down ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... the expression of their faces. And on, on, on, came the intoxicating strains, increasing in volume and excellence until I imagined that all heaven had broken loose in one great effort to charm my feeble senses, and then with a thunderous climax it ceased instantly, the musicians smiled and bowed pleasantly to one another, and then ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... of such turmoil and uproar and violent commotion. Nor had he imagined a boat could play as wild antics as did the Dazzler and still survive. Often she wallowed over on her beam till he thought she would surely capsize. At other times she leaped and plunged in the air and fell upon the seas with thunderous crashes as though her bottom were shattered to fragments. Again, she would fetch up taut on her hawsers so suddenly and so fiercely as to reel from the shock and to groan and ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... almost to the town, where in the lower portion the houses were flooded by the Kali Bezar (great river). Business was suspended except by a few determined spirits who worked on by gaslight, so great was the alarm at the darkness and thunderous noises." ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... flame if occasion required, she was convinced. For, more than once, out of the corner of her eye and round the edge of her sun-bonnet, she had caught his thunderous looks of disgust at some ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... choice" with him, because he could not bunt, but had to hit out. Well, he succeeded in doing a mighty thing, for the ball went whizzing far over Major's head out in center, and started rolling down the little incline. Hugh and "K.K." raced home amidst thunderous plaudits, and after them came Julius, plodding along "like an ice-wagon," some of the anxious ones declared, though after all he had abundance of time to make the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... everything must be going wrong once more, and afraid that she might accelerate the catastrophe if she moved as much as a finger. And, surely enough, he suddenly gave a cry of anguish, and launched forth an oath in a thunderous voice. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... a fixed fact to be a very positive one; and Kabylia, a region to whose outline no geographer could give precision, has long existed as the most uncomfortable reality in colonial France. Irreconcilable Kabylia, hovering as a sort of thunderous cloudland among the peaks of the Atlas Mountains, is respected for a capacity it has of rolling out storms of desperate warriors. These troops disgust and confound the French by making every hut and house a fortress: like the clansmen of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... only his force, but his will to struggle, was fast ebbing away. Presently, with a thunderous, gasping sob, the last breath left his mighty lungs, and his head dropped on the sand. It was trodden under in an instant; and then, afraid of being engulfed themselves, the hooting revellers abandoned it, to crowd struggling upon the arched hump of the back. Here they tore ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... came, Malone was feeling a warm glow in his interior, but no real fogginess. The dance floor had been cleared by this time, and a group of six costumed professionals glided out and took places. The musicians broke out into a thunderous and bumpy piece, and the dancers began some sort of Slavic folk dance that looked like a combination of a kazotska and a shivaree. Malone watched them with interest. They looked like good dancers, but they seemed to be plagued with clumsiness; they were always crashing into one another. ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... dark, but there was light sufficient to enable them to see their way. As they drew near they came within the influence of the enormous breakers, which rose like long gigantic snakes and rolled in the form of perpendicular walls to the reef, where they fell with a thunderous roar in a flood ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... a clamorous, smoke-infested district embraced by the iron arms of the elevated tracks. In a city boasting fewer millions, it would be known familiarly as downtown. From Congress to Lake Street, from Wabash almost to the river, those thunderous tracks make a complete circle, or loop. Within it lie the retail shops, the commercial hotels, the theaters, the restaurants. It is the Fifth Avenue (diluted) and the Broadway (deleted) of Chicago. And he who frequents it by night in search of amusement ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of the body. I delight my little rascals by making the hydrogen flame sing in a glass tube, which trickles with the drops of water resulting from the combustion; I make them jump with the explosions of the thunderous mixture. Later, I show them, with the same invariable success, the splendors of phosphorus, the violent powers of chlorine, the loathsome smells of sulfur, the metamorphoses of carbon and so on. In short, in a series of lessons, the principal ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... pound ball hoisted into each bronze throat, and then, as the gunners did their work, each mass of metal crashed through the thickets, the savages yelling in delight at the thunderous reports that came back, in echo after echo. There was no reply from the thickets, and they began to reload for the second discharge. Then Henry marked the gunner at the cannon on his right, and slowly the long muzzle of the beautiful blue steel barrel rose until it bore ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... different, and as he paused a moment, looking down on the upturned, laughing faces, with a hundred jocular and congratulatory salutations shouted up at him, somebody started a cheer, and it was taken up with thunderous good-will. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... eyes grew dim With the dizzying whirl—which way to swim? The thunderous downshoot deafened him; Half he choked in the lashing spray: Life is sweet, and the grave is ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... dreamer. It is feigned that the sea-faring life is not one jot more dangerous than most of the laborious callings followed ashore. Let no man credit this. The sailor never springs aloft, never slides out to a yard-arm, never gives battle to the thunderous canvas, scarcely performs a duty, indeed, that does not contain a distinct menace to his life. That the calling has less of danger in it in these days than it formerly held I will not undertake to determine. If in former times ships put to sea destitute of the scientific equipment which characterises ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... response, the main tubes roared into thunderous life and the Polaris shook as the sudden acceleration battled the force of gravity. The ship's descent slowed perceptibly until she hovered motionless in the air, her stabilizer fins only two ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... his chair and thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. He indulged in a few German expletives, bombastic and thunderous, which relieved him so much that he was able to ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the keen night air, Renwick waited, listening, and now heard again from outside the thunderous reverberations of the battle at the head of the Pass. He had been so intent upon his mission that he had forgotten it! But now the furious character of the engagement was obvious. It was far distant, perhaps four or five miles away, and yet the wild heavens were ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... state quite positively, David," he commenced, "that we are—" but he got no further. From behind us in the vicinity of the prospector there came the most thunderous, awe-inspiring roar that ever had fallen upon my ears. With one accord we turned to discover the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and paralyzed all hands. The struggle on the main deck ceased abruptly. It was the strangest thing I ever beheld, the way Newman's thunderous command seemed to turn to graven images the men on deck. They were frozen into grotesque attitudes, arms drawn back to strike, boots lifted to kick. Mister Lynch stood with his capstan bar poised, as though he were at bat in a ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... back at the enemy, he gave the sharp "Ready a starboard broadside!" to the waiting gunners. He allowed them time to have their matches alight, then "Fire!" rang his clear voice. The deck leaped under the boys' feet. The long, thunderous bellow of the battery jarred out over the sea. Even as they looked the enemy's maingaff, shot away at the jaws, dangled loose from the peak halyards, and her broad sail crumpled, puffing out awkwardly in ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... moment that an oil-can exploded with a thunderous crump twenty yards or so beyond the trench, there was a sudden noise of ripping canvas, an agonised shout, and the heavy crash of a body encountering china. Then—silence. The sap parties heard only the oil-can; Percy FitzPercy for a wonder was not brooding over his invention, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... sorrel, as a dull, thunderous report was answered by a great cry from the crowd; and then he dashed ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... first time that most of Hunston had ever seen him. The story of his deeds and his sufferings, doubtless considerably embellished and known to every one, made him a figure of keen popular interest, and the cheers and hand-clappings now were thunderous, compelling him to lift his hat again and again. Some even started a swift descent upon the Hackley residence with the evident intention of carrying the young man to the stand on their shoulders. But Hackley came down to his gate to meet them and buffeted them away, explaining ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Bettins' reply was lost in a sudden shout of voices rising from the lower end of the flat. The vague forms of several horsemen appeared; there came the thunderous beat of flying hoofs. Howard's lips grew tight-pressed. True lifted himself ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... advanced, the great tail stirred up a cloud of reddish dust, and left behind it a round deep depression in a surface already crisscrossed with a multitude of similar depressions. A bellowing hiss came from its gaping mouth, and it increased its pace to a thunderous, waddling rush. ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... shouted, not because he had to give a necessary order to the steersmen, but because his soul was full of life and strength, and this life and strength wanted to find free expression, so it rushed forth in that thunderous ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... have followed was lost in a thunderous crashing of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drown the man's utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he sat gaping ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... much, he gets, as you at once recognize, from the Scripture. His "Heroes and Hero Worship" is based on an idea of heroism which he learned from the Bible. He is an Old Testament prophet of present times; and, while he degenerated into a scold before he was through with it, he yet spoke with the thunderous voice of a true prophet, and much of the time in the language of the prophets. Some one said once that the only real reverence Carlyle ever had was for the person of Christ. Certainly there is no note of sneer, but of the profoundest regard ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... had to stand silent for a few minutes in face of the thunderous welcome which he received from the Irish benches. Though the reception was gratifying, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting its termination, for he was full of vigour and eagerness for the attack, and never in his most youthful ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... said the Abbe, speaking somewhat unsteadily, "that you might when you heard all, hurl some of Rome's thunderous denunciations ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli



Words linked to "Thunderous" :   thunder, loud, unpropitious, deafening, earsplitting, thundery



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