thunderbolt

thunderbolt is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 3 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.Something resembling lightning in suddenness and effectiveness. The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war. Dryden.
  2. 2.Vehement threatening or censure; especially, ecclesiastical denunciation; fulmination. He severely threatens such with the thunderbolt of excommunication. Hakewill.
  3. 3.(Paleon.) A belemnite, or thunderstone. Thunderbolt beetle (Zoöl.), a long-horned beetle (Arhopalus fulminans) whose larva bores in the trunk of oak and chestnut trees. It is brownish and bluish-black, with W-shaped whitish or silvery markings on the elytra.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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