Word.ws English Dictionary

cloudbursts

cloudbursts is the plural of cloudburst.

Meaning of cloudburst

Noun

cloudburst (plural cloudbursts)

  1. A sudden heavy rainstorm.
    • [B]ut the sound . . . expressed an utter abandonment to grief; not the cloud-burst of some passing emotion, but the slow down-pour of a whole heaven of sorrow.1899, Edith Wharton, “A Cup of Cold Water”, in The Greater Inclination
  2. (figuratively) A sudden downfall or shortcoming.
    • "[...] [T]his great storm of a beating would rain down on our backs?"
      "Yours, at least, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "must be accustomed to such cloudbursts; but mine, brought up on cambric and fine Dutch linen, of course will feel more deeply the pain of this misfortune.Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 106

Questions about cloudbursts

What is cloudbursts the plural of?
Cloudbursts is the plural of cloudburst.

Words near cloudbursts in the dictionary

  1. cloudbases
  2. cloudberries
  3. cloudberry
  4. cloudborne
  5. cloudburst
  6. cloudbursts
  7. cloudbust
  8. cloudbuster
  9. cloudbusters
  10. cloudbusting
  11. cloudbusts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cloudbursts (page history and authors); cloudburst (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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Cite this entry: “cloudbursts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cloudbursts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.