Word.ws English Dictionary

toad-strangler

toad-strangler noun: a very heavy downpour of rain.

Noun

toad-strangler (plural toad-stranglers)

  1. (US, dialectal) A very heavy downpour of rain.
    • "I mean, hit's a toad-strangler of a rain," he proffered. "I mean!" she agreed. "Reckon your daddy'll keer, me a-follerin' this-a-way?" "Reckon he mought."1940, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, When the whippoorwill
    • It's not what I'd call a sprinkle, and it's not a chip washer or a gully washer — it's a real regular toad-strangler, and I've seen 'em like this in Arkansas when it turns all the roads into black gumbo.1943, James Hilton, The story of Dr. Wassell

Synonyms of toad-strangler

Forms of toad-strangler

pluraltoad-stranglers

Questions about toad-strangler

What does toad-strangler mean?
Toad-strangler means a very heavy downpour of rain.
What part of speech is toad-strangler?
Toad-strangler is a noun.
What is the plural of toad-strangler?
The plural of toad-strangler is toad-stranglers.

Words near toad-strangler in the dictionary

  1. toad-headed agamas
  2. toad-in-the-hole
  3. toad-in-the-holes
  4. toad-like
  5. toad-spit
  6. toad-strangler
  7. toad-stranglers
  8. toadate
  9. toadback
  10. toadbacks
  11. toadbug

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toad-strangler (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-toad-strangler.ogg.

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