| 释义 |
thunderbolt, n.|ˈθʌndəbəʊlt|
Forms: see thunder n. and bolt n.1; (9 dial. dunderbolt).
1. a. A supposed bolt or dart formerly (and still vulgarly) believed to be the destructive agent in a lightning-flash when it ‘strikes’ anything; a flash of lightning conceived as an intensely hot solid body moving rapidly through the air and impinging upon something: in mythology an attribute of Jove, Thor, or other deity. Cf. bolt n.1 2.
In later use often a vague rhetorical or poetic expression for a destructive lightning-flash or thunderstroke.
c1440Alphabet of Tales 49 Þis womman was burnyd to dede with a thondre-bolte. 1535[see bolt n.1 2]. 1560J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 462 In the beginning of..Ianuary..were horrible tempestes, thondering, and lightening, and thonderboltes. 1632Lithgow Trav. ii. 69 Men should dread the thunder-bolt, when they see the lightning. 1710W. King Heathen Gods & Heroes x. (1722) 33 All the rest [of the Giants]..fell by the Thunderbolts of Jupiter. 1890W. E. Norris Misadventure xvii, The intelligence..had fallen upon him like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
b. An imaginary or conventional representation of the above as an emblem of a deity, a heraldic bearing, etc.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., On medals, the thunder-bolt is sometimes found to accompany the emperors heads; as that of Augustus. 1823P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 489 The head of Medusa, or the Furies, thunderbolts, and other symbols of horror. 1894Parker's Gloss. Her. s.v., Azure, a sun between three thunderbolts, winged and shafted or.
2. fig. Something very destructive, terrible, or startling; esp. an awful denunciation, censure, or threat proceeding from a high authority; some sudden or unexpected, and hence startling event or piece of news, usually untoward.
1559Primer in Priv. Prayers (1851) 91 To the thunderbolts of thy word put violence. 1591Spenser Ruins of Rome 150 To dart abroad the thunder bolts of warre. 1633T. Stafford Pac. Hib. i. xv. (1821) 168 Terrified with the Priests Thunderbolts of Excommunication. 1787F. Burney Diary 30 Jan., This information was a thunderbolt to her. 1860Reade Cloister & H. xxxviii, Awaking from the stupor into which this thunderbolt of tyranny had thrown him.
b. Applied to a person noted for violent or destructive action; one who acts with furious and resistless energy.
1593Harvey Pierce's Super. Wks. (Grosart) II. 48 Oratours..infinitely ouermatched by this hideous thunderbolt in humanity. 1599Hayward 1st Pt. Hen. IV 2 Prince Edward the thunderbolt of warre in his time. 1708S. Centlivre Busie Body iii. iii, I have done you a piece of Service; I told the old Thunderbolt, that the Gentleman that was gone in, was [etc.]. 1742R. Blair Grave 123 Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war? The Roman Cæsars? 1847Emerson Repr. Men, Napoleon Wks. (Bohn) I. 372 A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found invulnerable in his entrenchments.
c. In Sport, a fast hard-struck shot or stroke.
1959Times 29 May 4/7 [Lawn Tennis] Maloney, with his ‘thunderbolts’ made no mistake in the next for the match. 1977Times 7 Feb. 7/2 Heighway, at full steam, lashed a thunderbolt past Latchford from the edge of the box.
3. Locally applied to various stones, fossils, or mineral concretions, formerly or vulgarly supposed to be thunderbolts (sense 1):
a. a belemnite or other fossil cephalopod;
b. a flint celt or similar prehistoric implement;
c. a mass or nodule of iron pyrites occurring in chalk.
1618Latham 2nd Bk. Falconry (1633) 160 Take a thunder⁓bolt, the which is found most commonly in the fields, in some channell or watercourse,..put it into a hot fire and burne it well. 1634–5Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 41 The dart of a thunderbolt about the length and thickness of your little finger. 1712Steele Spect. No. 431 ⁋3 Thunder⁓bolts, a certain long, round bluish Stone, which I found among the Gravel in our Garden. 1814Scott Diary 8 Aug., in Lockhart, The most superb collection of the stone axes..called celts. The Zetlanders call them thunderbolts, and keep them in their houses as a receipt against thunder. 1826Polwhele Trad. & Recoll. ix. II. 607 For ‘the reumatis’..I knew an old woman who used to boil a celt (vulgarly a dunderbolt or thunderbolt) for some hours, and then dispense her water to the diseased. 1862Athenæum 30 Aug. 280 Go..into any of the more productive chalk-pits.., and the workmen will offer you fragmentary ‘thunderbolts’ (belemnites) and nautili.
d. Erroneously or by confusion applied to a meteoric stone or meteorite.
1802[see thunder-stone 2]. 1830Herschel Stud. Nat. Phil. 120 These circumstances..long caused them to be confounded with an effect of lightning, and called thunderbolts. 1884A. Lang Custom & Myth i. 10 Village wisdom determines that the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a ‘thunderbolt’. 1949‘J. Nelson’ Backwoods Teacher vi. 57 We spoke of lightning and ‘thunderbolts’. Of these latter, Fritz Baily said his uncle used to ‘gather them up—and we still get lots kickin' 'round the barn.’.. He promised to bring me one. (Next morning he did—a meteorite the size of his fist.)
4. Applied (chiefly locally) to various plants:
a. the corn poppy (= thunder-flower (b), thunder n. 6);
b. the bladder campion;
c. the white campion;
d. a species of iris, Iris Xiphium.
1847–78Halliwell, Thunder-bolt. (1) The corn poppy. West. 1886Britten & Holland Eng. Plant-n., Thunder Bolts. (1) Lychnis vespertina. Rutl. (2) Papaver Rhœas... (3) Silene inflata. Kent.., where the children snap the calyxes, which explode with a slight report. 1898Westm. Gaz. 28 June 3/1 That strangely beautiful Spanish iris the Thunderbolt, a large flower of browns and yellows and greyish purples.
5. attrib. thunderbolt attack, raid, a short-lived but heavy air-raid; thunderbolt beetle, a species of beetle, Arhopalus fulminans, with dark wing-cases crossed by zigzag grey lines; thunderbolt-stone: see quot., and cf. thunderbolt 3.
1871Tylor Prim. Cult. xvi. II. 238 They [Sioux Indians] consider the lightning entering the ground to scatter there in all directions thunderbolt-stones, which are flints, etc. 1943Hutchinson's Pictorial Hist. War 25 Nov. 1942–16 Feb. 1943 240/1 At night Lancasters and Halifaxes carry out a large-scale ‘thunderbolt’ raid on Duesseldorf, dropping several hundred tons of bombs in a 20-minutes attack. 1944H. Hawton Night Bombing v. 66 There is no necessary connection between concentrated and precision bombing, but it would be quite wrong to think that the ‘thunderbolt attack’, as it is sometimes called, lacks exactness. The Renault factory was almost completely demolished in an attack of short duration.
Hence ˈthunderbolt v., trans. (a) to strike with or as with a thunderbolt; to astonish, amaze, or terrify; (b) to hurl or dart like a thunderbolt; ˈthunderbolted ppl. a., struck by a thunderbolt; charged with thunderbolts.
a1586Sidney Arcadia iii. (1622) 304 Sorrow not being able so quickely to thunderbolt her heart thorough her senses. 1593G. Harvey Pierce's Super. **iv b, He brandisheth the whurlewinde..And thunderbolteth fo-confounding shott. 1623J. Wodroephe Marrow Fr. Tongue 487/2 A culpable and indebted Man is alwayes thunder-bolted. 1819W. Tennant Papistry Storm'd (1827) 31 It beat the thunder⁓boltit leven. 1881in Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. s.v., He (the tower) was thunderbolted about of a sixty year agone. |