1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. ccccxiiij^v Than..was the city [sc. Metz]..beaten with shot,..the noise and Thondering thereof was hard..iiii Dutche miles beyond the Rhine.

1633 P. Fletcher Purple Island xi. iii. 146 Raise my soft strain to high thundering.

1822 Ld. Byron Werner v. i. 113 The thundering Of far artillery.

1866 C. Dickens Let. 18 Apr. (1999) XI. 187 The thundering of applause..was quite staggering.

1592 W. Wyrley Lord Chandos in True Vse Armorie i Whom sound he hits with staggring steps doth reel, They knew it sure that his sad thundring feel.

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 281/1 Thundring, altitonant.

1570 T. Tusser Hundreth Good Pointes Husbandry (new ed.) f. 41^v That sendeth thundring claps, like terrors out of Hell.

1621 in W. Foster Eng. Factories India 1618–21 (1906) 242 We came to anchor.., and in a flat calme began to make thundering weather.

1751 J. Bartram Observ. Trav. from Pensilvania 56 A rainy thundering warm day.

1856 D. Masson Ess. Biogr. & Crit. vi. 179 [He] resumed his place in the public eye as the thundering Jove of the Opposition.

1650 R. Baxter Saints Everlasting Rest (1651) ii. vi. §6 264 Hence the Christian soldiers in their Army were called, the Thundering Legion.

1738 E. Chambers Cycl. (ed. 2) Thundering Legion, Legio Fulminans, was a legion in the Roman army, consisting of Christian soldiers, who in the expedition of the emperor Marcus Aurelius against the Sarmatæ, Quadi, and Marcomanni, saved the whole army, then ready to perish of thirst, by procuring, with their Prayers, a very plentiful Shower thereon; and, at the same time, a furious hail, mixed with lightening and thunderbolts, on the enemy..: though some say, that the legion those Christians were of was called the thundering legion before.

1833 E. Burton Lect. Eccl. Hist. ii. xix. 166 One legion obtained the name of the thundering legion, because the Christian soldiers..knelt down in the presence of the enemy,..followed by a..storm of thunder.

1835 Penny Cycl. III. 105/1 Some unlucky legendist, not knowing that the 12th or Thundering Legion, which was engaged in this affair, had its name before it happened, took occasion to call it a Christian Legion, and to attribute the miraculous storm to the efficacy of its prayers.

1618 T. Adams Happines of Church ii. 160 Hee goes a thundring pace, that you would not think it possible to ouertake him.

1632 W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. x. 476 They all three left mee in a thundering rage.

1681 T. Otway Souldiers Fortune i. i. 4 I warrant him; a thundring Rogue.

a1704 T. Brown tr. Aristænetus Lett. in Wks. (1707) I. i. 7 I was drawing a thundring Fish out of the Water, so very large that it made my Rod crack again.

1851 G. Borrow Lavengro xcix What a thundering old fool you are!

1900 J. M. Barrie Tommy & Grizel v. 59 Such a thundering lie.

1809 Salmagundi 7 Mar. 95 He..prefers..telling his story among cronies of his own gender..and thundering long stories they are.

1839 Havana (New York) Republican 25 Dec. He is thundering shy of me.

1853 C. Dickens Bleak House xxi. 209 I was a thundering bad son.

1887 W. Black Sabina Zembra 228 Don't you think that a thundering good licking would knock the laziness out of him?

1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer (1891) 261 A thundering soft thing it is, in a general way.