a. Also 6 thunderus, 7–9 thundrous. [f. THUNDER sb. + -OUS.]
1. Full of or charged with thunder; of or pertaining to thunder; thundery.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 25. O God most puisaunt, whose mighty auctoritye … mankind skeareth with thunderus humbling.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 702. Notus and Afer black with thundrous Clouds.
1726. Pope, Odyss., XIX. 513. Nor winter’s boreal blast, nor thund’rous show’r, Nor solar ray, cou’d pierce the shady bow’r.
1876. Black, Madcap V., xiv. The lurid and sultry evening had died down into a gloomy and thunderous darkness.
1904. M. Hewlett, Queen’s Quair, III. x. 484. The 10th of June had been a thunderous day.
2. Resembling thunder in its loudness.
1606. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. I. Trophies, 370. Rushing with thundrous roar.
1820. Keats, Hyperion, II. 8. Thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse.
1875. H. James, R. Hudson, vii. 239. In a voice almost thunderous,… he repeated, ‘Sit down!’
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., VI. Herr Klesmer … at the piano, struck a thunderous chord.
1892. Times, 10 June, 9/1. Which [motion] was carried amid thunderous applause.
3. fig. Suggestive of thunder; of threatening aspect, or charged with latent energy, like a thunder-cloud; violent, destructive, or terrifying like thunder.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Vis. Poets, xcix. Here, Homer, with the broad suspense Of thunderous brows.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 218. Her [Medea’s] fiery eyes and thundrous silence.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 57. The first Napoleon, in his thunderous career over our western world.
Hence Thunderously adv., in a thunderous manner, with a noise like thunder, very loudly; with threatening aspect as if presaging thunder; Thunderousness, thunderous quality.
1839. Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 30 Nov., 6/1. Their services are thunderously applauded, and, I doubt not, are well paid.
1842. L. Hunt, Palfrey, I. 184. Shaking him and his saddle right thunderously.
1877. Buffalo Weekly Courier, 21 Nov., 8/6, citing N. Y. Tribune, no. 17. I [Mr. Beecher] am overcome by a sense of my own pride, by my hatefulness, by my thunderousness, that the love of Christ for such as I seems almost beyond understanding.
1886. Mrs. Phelps, Burglars in Paradise, vii. Some one knocked thunderously at the back door.
1903. A. Smellie, Men of the Covt., vii. (1904), 103. The skies hung still more thunderously over Presbyterian Scotland.
1904. Westm. Gaz., 17 March, 3/1. The great organ-voice of many waters sounding in mellowed thunderousness.
