Definitions

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

  • transitive & intransitive verb To fulminate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To flash with detonation; sound like thunder; fulminate; hence, to speak out fiercely or authoritatively.
  • To fulminate; give utterance to in an authoritative or vehement manner.
  • To shoot or dart, as lightning.

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

  • intransitive verb obsolete To thunder.
  • transitive verb To shoot; to dart like lightning; to fulminate; to utter with authority or vehemence.

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

  • verb archaic To thunder or lightning.
  • verb archaic, figuratively To utter with authority or vehemence; fulminate.

Etymologies

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

[From Latin fulmināre, to strike with lightning; see fulminate.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French fulminer, from Latin fulminō ("lighten, illuminate"). More at fulminate.

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Examples

  • Next in place, next in miseries and discontents, in all manner of hair-brain actions, are great men, procul a Jove, procul a fulmine, the nearer the worse.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • E lecto exsilientes, ad subitum tintinnabuli plausum quasi fulmine territi.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Episcopi, anathematis fulmine terribiles, alios in suam potestatem redegerunt, alios furibunda s鎢itia id temporis persecuti sunt.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation 2003

  • Episcopi, anathematis fulmine terribiles, alios in suam potestatem redegerunt, alios furibunda sæuitia id temporis persecuti sunt.

    A briefe commentarie of Island, by Arngrimus Ionas 2003

  • It is rather, we say, on account of such lines as these (no picture of tropical loveliness ever surpassed, in our opinion, the description printed in italics) that we admire "Locksley Hall," than on account of the troubled passions which it embodies; knowing as we do, that poetry has nobler offices to perform than to fulmine forth fierce and sarcastic invectives against the head of a jilt; and if, as Mr Tennyson says,

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 Various

  • His treatise "Della maniera di difendere gli edificii dal fulmine" (1772) and his pamphlet "Dei conduttori metallici a preservazione degli edifici dal fulmine" (1774) contributed largely to remove the popular prejudices of the time against the use of the "Franklinian rod"; and through his exertions lightning-conductors were placed on the Cathedral of Siena, on the tower of St. Mark's, Venice, on powder magazines, and ships of the

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913

  • Colchida nec referam uendentem regna parentis et lacerum fratrem stupro segetesque uirorum10 taurorumque trucis flammas uigilemque draconem et reducis annos auroque incendia facta et male conceptos partus peiusque necatos; septenosque duces ereptaque fulmine flammis moenia Thebarum et uictam, quia uicerat, urbem15 germanosque patris referam matrisque nepotis natorumque epulas conuersaque sidera retro ereptumque diem; nec Persica bella profundo indicta et magna pontum sub classe latentem inuersumque fretum terris, iter aequoris undis.

    A New Poetry 1912

  • Herculeosque uelint semper numerare labores miratumque rudis se tollere Terea pinnas post epulas, Philomela, tuas; sunt ardua mundi qui male temptantem curru Phaethonta loquantur35 exstinctasque canant emisso fulmine flammas fumantemque Padum, Cycnum plumamque senilem et flentis semper germani funere siluas.

    Exordium to a Poem on Hunting 1912

  • Flora quibus mater præspargens ante viai cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. inde loci sequitur calor aridus et comes una pulverulenta Ceres et etesia flabra aquilonum, inde antumnus adit, graditur simul Eubius Euan, inde aliæ tempestates ventique secuntur, altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens. tandem bruma nives adfert pigrumque rigorem, prodit hiemps, sequitur crepitans hanc dentibus algor.

    Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Third series John Addington Symonds 1866

  • He calls the nightingale _sirena de'boschi_, gunpowder _l'irreparabil fulmine terreno_, Columbus _il ligure Argonauta_, Galileo _il novello

    Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 The Catholic Reaction John Addington Symonds 1866

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