Word.ws English Dictionary

by thunder

by thunder adverb: used for emphasis, sometimes with a threatening implication.

Adverb

by thunder (not comparable)

  1. Used for emphasis, sometimes with a threatening implication.
    • "Mr. Pillow, Sir, none of your impertinence, or I will chastise you as well as this fellow." "That's a two handed game, by thunder," said Long Tom, "[…] I dare you to deadly combat. […]"1849, Masonic Signet and Literary Mirror, volume 1, page 379
    • "Have it out with him to-night. Fair and square. Out he goes, Edmund, neck and crop. Out, by thunder."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 76

Questions about by thunder

What does by thunder mean?
By thunder means used for emphasis, sometimes with a threatening implication.
What part of speech is by thunder?
By thunder is an adverb.

Words near by thunder in the dictionary

  1. by the time
  2. by the ton
  3. by the way
  4. by the way of
  5. by their fruits you will know them
  6. by thunder
  7. by Toutatis
  8. by trade
  9. by turns
  10. by vice of
  11. by virtue of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by thunder (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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