THUNDERBOLT

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A shocking surprise

Example:

news of the attack came like a bombshell

Synonyms:

bombshell; thunderbolt; thunderclap

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("thunderbolt" is a kind of...):

surprise (a sudden unexpected event)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A discharge of lightning accompanied by thunder

Synonyms:

bolt; bolt of lightning; thunderbolt

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("thunderbolt" is a kind of...):

lightning (abrupt electric discharge from cloud to cloud or from cloud to earth accompanied by the emission of light)

Credits

Context examples:

Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with arms extended overhead as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, Shut up!

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.