thundering
thundering is the present participle and gerund of thunder.
Adjective
thundering (comparative more thundering, superlative most thundering)
- Of, pertaining to, or accompanied by thunder.
- Producing a noise or effect like thunder; thunderous.
- Very great; extraordinary.
- “I think it had a thundering lot to do with the story I am considering now,” said Father Brown.1927, G. K. Chesterton, The Secret of Father Brown
Noun
thundering (plural thunderings)
- A loud percussive sound, like thunder.
- I listened while God seemed to speak through the thunderings of the great cataract before me.1833, Bela Bates Edwards, Memoir of the Rev. Elias Cornelius, page 275
- A thunderstorm.
Meaning of thunder
Verb
thunder (third-person singular simple present thunders, present participle thundering, simple past and past participle thundered)
- To produce thunder; to sound, rattle, or roar, as a discharge of atmospheric electricity.
- It thundered continuously.
- To make a noise like thunder.
- The train thundered along the tracks.
- To (make something) move very fast (with loud noise).
- Senseless years thunder by / Millions are willing to give their lives for you / Does nothing live on?1983, “Forbidden Colours”, in David Sylvian (lyrics), Ryuichi Sakamoto (music), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, performed by David Sylvian
- To say (something) with a loud, threatening voice.
- "Get back to work at once!", he thundered.
- To produce something with incredible power.
- Just as it appeared Arsenal had taken the sting out of the tie, Johnson produced a moment of outrageous quality, thundering a bullet of a left foot shot out of the blue and into the top left-hand corner of Wojciech Szczesny's net with the Pole grasping at thin air.2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1 - 3 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2011
Adverb
thundering (comparative more thundering, superlative most thundering)
- Very great; extraordinarily.
- "As long as there are any of us left sound and healthy we've got a chance - a thundering good chance."1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 112
Forms of thundering
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more thundering |
| superlative | most thundering |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more thundering |
| superlative | most thundering |
| Noun | |
| plural | thunderings |
Origin of thundering
From Middle English thonderynge, þoundryng, equivalent to thunder + -ing.
From Middle English thundryng, þondring, from Old English þunring (“thundering; thunder”), equivalent to thunder + -ing.
Words formed from thundering
Phrases with thundering
Questions about thundering
- What does thundering mean?
- Thundering means of, pertaining to, or accompanied by thunder.
- What is thundering the present participle and gerund of?
- Thundering is the present participle and gerund of thunder.
- What part of speech is thundering?
- Thundering can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
Words near thundering in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thundering (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “thundering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thundering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.