Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fall or slide of a large mass of material, especially of snow, down a mountainside.
  • noun A massive or overwhelming amount; a flood.
  • intransitive verb To fall or slide in a massive or overwhelming amount.
  • intransitive verb To overwhelm; inundate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The fall or sliding down of a mass of snow or ice from a mountain-slope.
  • noun Hence—2. Anything resembling an avalanche in suddenness and destructiveness: as, an avalanche of misfortunes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A large mass or body of snow and ice sliding swiftly down a mountain side, or falling down a precipice.
  • noun A fall of earth, rocks, etc., similar to that of an avalanche of snow or ice.
  • noun A sudden, great, or irresistible descent or influx of anything.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large mass or body of snow and ice sliding swiftly down a mountain side, or falling down a precipice.
  • noun A fall of earth, rocks, etc., similar to that of an avalanche of snow or ice.
  • noun A sudden, great, or irresistible descent or influx of anything.
  • noun Anything like an avalanche in suddenness and overwhelming quantity (like a barrage, blitz, etc).
  • verb intransitive To descend like an avalanche.
  • verb transitive To come down upon; to overwhelm.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain
  • verb gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow
  • noun a sudden appearance of an overwhelming number of things

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French; akin to Provençal lavanca, ravine, perhaps ultimately from Latin lābī, to slip.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French, from Franco-Provençal (Savoy) avalançhe, blend of aval ‘downhill’ and standard lavençhe, from Vulgar Latin *labanka (cf. Occitan lavanca, Italian valanga), alteration of Late Latin labina ‘landslide’ (cf. Franco-Provençal (Dauphiné) lavino, Romansch lavina), from Latin labi ‘to slip, slide’.

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Examples

  • Whatever doubts the professor may have had were swept away in what he called an "avalanche of congratulations".

    The Guardian World News John Hooper 2011

  • Just last month, a Post editorial on the Norway massacres sparked what the newspaper itself called an "avalanche" of critical comments and letters condemning the paper for what readers saw as having offered justification for the terrorism.

    Bradley Burston: A Rightist Push Scores Against Press Freedom in Israel Bradley Burston 2011

  • Just last month, a Post editorial on the Norway massacres sparked what the newspaper itself called an "avalanche" of critical comments and letters condemning the paper for what readers saw as having offered justification for the terrorism.

    Bradley Burston: A Rightist Push Scores Against Press Freedom in Israel Bradley Burston 2011

  • That is 4 Super Delegates to endorse not 3 This is what we call a avalanche of supers He has gotton almost 30 supers in 1 week he only needs 146 Delegates to win the nomination Hopefully that will come to close after Kentucky and Oregon vote.

    Three more superdelegates for Obama 2008

  • When an avalanche is deemed likely, it detonates a mixture of oxygen and propane gas in its explosion chamber.

    Gazex® 2008

  • Solution: collaborate with Cemagref, the world leading institution in avalanche science.

    Glacier-Sailing with the Katabatic Winds 2008

  • But even before you notice that an avalanche is racing towards you, the motion detectors built into your Life Bags Xtreme® automatically trigger rapid inflation so that in nanoseconds you are enveloped in a protective bubble stocked with supplies to last weeks.

    Wearable Anti-Avalanche Homes 2007

  • The armoire hides the messy avalanche that schoolwork had become over the summer, but now the avalanche is eradicated and safely filed and labeled in our file box system.

    Archive 2007-09-01 regina doman 2007

  • The armoire hides the messy avalanche that schoolwork had become over the summer, but now the avalanche is eradicated and safely filed and labeled in our file box system.

    Starting Homeschooling regina doman 2007

  • But even before you notice that an avalanche is racing towards you, the motion detectors built into your Life Bags Xtreme® automatically trigger rapid inflation so that in nanoseconds you are enveloped in a protective bubble stocked with supplies to last weeks.

    Archive 2007-11-01 2007

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