thunderstrike
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Verb
[edit]thunderstrike (third-person singular simple present thunderstrikes, present participle thunderstriking, simple past thunderstruck, past participle thunderstricken)
- (transitive, now rare) To strike, blast, or injure by, or as if by, lightning.
- 1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation or A New Prayse of the Old Asse[1], London: John Wolfe, page 8:
- […] some terrible bombarder of tearmes, as wilde as wildfire, that at the first flash of his fury, would leaue me thunder-stricken vpon the ground, or at the last volley of his outrage, would batter me to dust, and ashes.
- 1625, Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part 3, London: Henrie Fetherstone, Book 4, Chapter 9, § 1, p. 738,[2]
- 1678, Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe[3], London: Richard Royston, Book 1, Chapter 5, p. 672:
- [They] Seat God in the Clouds, and imagine his hands to be Employed, in opening and shutting the Cloisters of the Winds, in sprinkling the Flowers with dews, and thunder-striking the Tops of Mountains;
- 1717, Joseph Addison (translator), Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books, London: Jacob Tonson, Book 2, “The Story of Phaeton,” p. 48,[4]
- At once from Life, and from the Chariot driv’n,
- Th’ ambitious Boy fell Thunder-struck from Heav’n.
- 1816, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage[5], London: John Murray, Canto 4, stanza 181, p. 93:
- The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
- (transitive, figurative, now rare) To astonish, or strike dumb, as with something terrible.
- 1769, Arthur Murphy, Genuine Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of the Celebrated Miss Ann Elliot[6], London: J. Fell and J. Roson, p:
- At the expiration of this time, his lordship, who was already married, received a letter from his lady, who had been at the German Spa to drink the waters, intimating that she was on her return to England. This thunderstruck his lordship, who was sensible, that on her ladyship’s coming home, his new mistress must decamp.