[a. F. avalanche, dial. form of avalance ‘descent,’ f. avaler: see AVALE. L’avalanche also appears dialectally as la valanche, It. valanca, valanga; also lavanche, lavange, either a purely phonetic transposition, or due to association with It. lava torrent, gully, f. lavare to wash.]
1. A large mass of snow, mixed with earth and ice, loosened from a mountain side, and descending swiftly into the valley below.
[1765. Nat. Hist., in Ann. Reg., 86/1. The Clergyman … percieving a noise towards the top of the mountains, looked up, and descried two valancas driving headlong towards the village.
1766. Smollett, Trav., xxxviii. 337. Scarce a year passes in which some mules and their drivers do not perish by the valanches.]
1789. Coxe, Trav. Switz., xxxviii. II. 3. We crossed some snow, the remains of a last winter’s Avalanche.
1817. Byron, Manfred, I. ii. 75. Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down.
1870. H. Macmillan, Bible Teach., ii. 31. The muffled roar of a distant avalanche.
2. transf. and fig.
1850. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxxviii. 334. Overwhelmed by the avalanche of cruelty and wrong which had fallen upon her.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamphl., v. (1872), 153. Unable longer to endure such an avalanche of forgeries.
c. 1854. Stanley, Sinai & Pal. (1858), Introd. 41. This mass of ruins … rolled down in avalanches of stones.
3. Comb. and attrib., as avalanche-like, -theory.
1877. Rosenthal, Muscles & Nerves, 122. Pflüger spoke of it as an avalanche-like increase in the excitement within the nerves.
1881. Syd. Soc. Lex., He explains this by the avalanche theory, according to which nervous influence gathers force as it descends.
