Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Lightning; a thunderbolt.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • A most frequent and ordinary cause of melancholy, [1572] fulmen perturbationum (Picolomineus calls it) this thunder and lightning of perturbation, which causeth such violent and speedy alterations in this our microcosm, and many times subverts the good estate and temperature of it.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • But to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word, not only plus ultra, in precedence of the ancient non ultra, and imitabile fulmen, in precedence of the ancient non imitabile fulmen,

    The Advancement of Learning 2003

  • We next resolved to suspend the conclusion; since the _brutum fulmen_ became louder and louder still, in an advertisement actively inserted in the London newspapers.

    The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 10, No. 282, November 10, 1827 Various

  • Turgot composed in his honor the celebrated latin verse: _Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrum que tyrannis_.

    The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 J. F. Loubat

  • The attempt to make a crime by the advertiser is not without precedent or imitation: it was, however, merely a threat and a _brutum fulmen_.

    The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 Various

  • Annette's threat was no _brutum fulmen_, as the society newspapers soon began to show.

    Despair's Last Journey David Christie Murray

  • And what now remains is, not to suffer the coming trials to sink into fictions of law -- as a _brutum fulmen_ of menace, never meant to be realized.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 Various

  • But, as the matter _now_ stands, if their dreary drivellers Cobden, Bright, Wilson, Acland, W.J. Fox, were withdrawn from the public scene in which they are so anxious to figure, and sent to enjoy the healthy exercise of the tread-mill for one single three months, would this eternal "_brutum fulmen_" about the repeal of the Corn-laws be heard of any more?

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 339, January, 1844 Various

  • But this sentence was found to be a _brutum fulmen_; the crime was no crime, the punishment turned out no punishment: and a minority, even in this very

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 Various

  • In the meantime Mr. McDougall issued a proclamation which was a mere _brutum fulmen_, and then went back to

    Canada J. G. Bourinot

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