earthquake

UK/ˈɜːθkweɪk//ˈɝθkweɪk/

earthquake noun: a shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.

Image: http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/sumatraEQ/SumatraNW1pic.ht, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

earthquake (plural earthquakes)

A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.
- Her alablaster brest she soft did kis, / Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake, / As it an Earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- I had just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.), when suddenly the thatch began to rustle and shake as if an army of cats were galloping over it, and immediately afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an instant I imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile house, which shook when an old cock went to...1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 9
(planetary geology) Such a quake specifically occurring on the planet Earth, as opposed to other celestial bodies.
- Since the response of some man-made structures to the ground motion near the epicenter is highly dependent on frequency, a significant difference in potential damage to the structures is expected between earthquakes and moonquakes.1988, Jürgen Oberst, Yosio Nakamura, “A seismic risk for the lunar base”, in The Second Conference on Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century, volume 1, NASA, pages 231–233
- The wave patterns, too, are strikingly different: The secondary (S) waves and surface waves on lunar seismograms are not generally as clearly defined and distinct as are those of earthquakes.2006, Bruce A. Bolt, Earthquakes, Fifth Edition
(figuratively) A sudden and intense upheaval; a severely disruptive event.
- As we have seen, economic earthquakes often result in political shockwaves. […] He highlights a correlation between those states with the highest robot density and those states that unexpectedly swung behind Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, namely Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.2019 July 11, John Thornhill, “Does tech threaten to rerun the worst of the Industrial Revolution?”, in Financial Times
- Leo Varadkar has announced he is standing down as Ireland’s prime minister and also giving up his role as leader of the Fine Gael party in the ruling coalition, in a surprise move described by pundits as a “political earthquake” for the country.2024 March 20, Jon Henley, “Leo Varadkar steps down as Irish prime minister in shock move”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Verb

earthquake (third-person singular simple present earthquakes, present participle earthquaking, simple past and past participle earthquaked)

(intransitive) To undergo an earthquake.
- Watch the Philippines very closely for the next little while. There is rumbling and earthquaking deep within Pinatubo and increased earthquaking within Mayon.1993, Gyeorgos C. Hatonn, The Best of Times: The Worst of Times, page 129

earthquake meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

earthquake in Hindi

shaking of the surface of a planet: भूकंप bhūkamp, ज़लज़ला zalzalā, भूचाल bhūcāl, भूकप bhūkap

earthquake in Tamil

shaking of the surface of a planet: நிலநடுக்கம் பூகம்பம் nilanaṭukkam

earthquake in Marathi

shaking of the surface of a planet: भूकंप bhūkampa

earthquake in Urdu

shaking of the surface of a planet: زَلْزَلَہ zalzala

More languagesFewer languages

earthquake in Bengali: ভূমিকম্প bhumikompo
earthquake in Telugu: భూకంపం bhūkampaṁ, భూకంపము bhūkampamu
earthquake in Malayalam: ഭൂമികുലുക്കം bhūmikulukkaṁ, ഭൂകമ്പം bhūkampaṁ
earthquake in Kannada: ಭೂಕಂಪ bhūkampa
earthquake in Punjabi: ਭੂਚਾਲ bhūcāl
earthquake in Gujarati: ધરતીકંપ dhartīkamp
earthquake in Odia: ଭୂମିକମ୍ପ bhumikampa
earthquake in Sanskrit: भूकम्प bhūkampa
earthquake in Sinhala: භූචලන bhūcalana
earthquake in Assamese: ভূঁইকঁপ bhũikõp, ভূমিকম্প bhumikompo
earthquake in Nepali: भूकम्प bhūkampa, भुइँचालो bhuĩcālo
earthquake in Pashto: رېږدله reẓdǝ́la
earthquake in Tagalog: lindol, teremoto
earthquake in Arabic: زَلْزَال zalzāl, زِلْزال zilzāl, زَلْزَلَة zalzala, هَزَّة أَرْضِيَّة
earthquake in Malay: gempa, gempa bumi, goyang gempa, tanah goyang
earthquake in Indonesian: gempa bumi, gempa, lindu
earthquake in Thai: แผ่นดินไหว pɛ̀n-din-wǎi
earthquake in Vietnamese: động đất
earthquake in Myanmar: ငလျင် nga.lyang
Kashmiri: بُنیُٛل bunyul
Dzongkha: ས་ཡོམ sa yom

Examples of earthquake in a sentence

Tectonic activity is part of nature, so there's no way to stop earthquakes.
The town was stricken by a devastating earthquake that left many buildings in ruins.
The magnitude of an earthquake is measured on the open-ended Richter scale.

All 40 example sentences with earthquake

Synonyms of earthquake

All synonyms of earthquake

Forms of earthquake

Noun
plural	earthquakes
Verb
third-person singular present	earthquakes
present participle	earthquaking
past participle	earthquaked
past	earthquaked

Plural of earthquake: earthquakes

Origin of earthquake

From Middle English erthequake, corresponding to earth + quake. Displaced Middle English eorð byfung (“earthquake”) from Old English eorþbeofung (literally “earth shaking”).

Words formed from earthquake

Phrases with earthquake

Questions about earthquake

What does earthquake mean?: Earthquake means a shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.
What is earthquake in Hindi?: Earthquake in Hindi is भूकंप (bhūkamp), ज़लज़ला (zalzalā), भूचाल (bhūcāl). See Earthquake meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is earthquake?: Earthquake can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce earthquake?: Earthquake is pronounced /ˈɜːθkweɪk/ (UK).
What is the plural of earthquake?: The plural of earthquake is earthquakes.

Words near earthquake in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: earthquake (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-earthquake.ogg.

Cite this entry: “earthquake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/earthquake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.