fulminate
Americanverb (used without object)
-
fulminates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
fulminated,
past participle, past
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fulminating
present participle
-
to explode with a loud noise; detonate.
-
to issue denunciations or the like (usually followed byagainst ).
The minister fulminated against legalized vice.
verb (used with object)
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fulminates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
fulminated,
past participle, past
-
fulminating
present participle
-
to cause to explode.
-
to issue or pronounce with vehement denunciation, condemnation, or the like.
noun
verb
-
to make criticisms or denunciations; rail
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to explode with noise and violence
-
archaic (intr) to thunder and lighten
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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fulminationnoun
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fulminatornoun
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fulminatoryadjective
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nonfulminatingadjective
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unfulminatedadjective
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unfulminatingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
fulminatesimple
-
fulminatessimple
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have fulminatedperfect
-
has fulminatedperfect
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am fulminatingprogressive
-
are fulminatingprogressive
-
is fulminatingprogressive
-
have been fulminatingperfect progressive
-
has been fulminatingperfect progressive
Past
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fulminatedsimple
-
had fulminatedperfect
-
was fulminatingprogressive
-
were fulminatingprogressive
-
had been fulminatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fulminate
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English fulminaten < Latin fulminātus, past participle of fulmināre “to hurl thunderbolts, thunder,” equivalent to fulmin-, stem of fulmen “thunderbolt, lightning” + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Watch a bomb fulminate or explode and hope you're under safe cover. Have your parents fulminate or blow up at you for coming home past curfew and hope you're not grounded for too long. The word fulminate is made up of the Latin root fulmen meaning "lightning flash." Look up at the sky during a violent thunderstorm and chances are you'll catch thunder and lightning fulminate or explode loudly and violently overhead. But you needn't look to the sky alone for this kind of intensity. If you find yourself in a room with passionate Republicans and Democrats debating, you might see them fulminate or severely rail against each other's beliefs.
Vocabulary lists containing fulminate
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Mr. Lanthimos isn’t the type to thunder and fulminate and declare his themes, and the film doesn’t really align with any particular political outlook.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
They fulminate in caustic tirades at the condemned, whose sentence is never in doubt and whose guilt is never in question.
From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2021
“Amy would fulminate and care deeply about issues,” said one former mayoral aide.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2021
Except for an unseemly moment in which Wolfe is permitted to fulminate against unspecified critics who accused him of botching the American response to Ebola, virology now disappears.
From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2021
The use of mercuric fulminate as a detonator dates from about 1814, when the explosive cap was invented.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 3 "Frost" to "Fyzabad" by Various
Mr. Vance fulminates: “Never have I read a purer distillation of our worship at the altar of commerce.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
“They are coming, they are coming, they are coming!” he fulminates in a clip the parents’ legal team plays for him during his 2019 deposition, at which he seems unmoved.
From Salon ● Mar. 26, 2024
“But even if money spent now saves money later, so what?” he fulminates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2021
He fulminates fire, of course, if he has remembered to change his flint, and, all in all, it’s just as well that he is invisible most of the time.
From Time ● Aug. 11, 2016
Of all the fulminates, gold is the worst, Which England, aeroplaning, now, lets drop By day and night, in bank, press, church and shop, Timed to the minute that it is to burst.
From Freedom, Truth and Beauty by Edward Doyle
Ferguson stared deep into the night while, behind him, his coaching staff of Neil McCann, Allan McGregor and Billy Dodds fulminated.
From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2025
For two years, the state quietly investigated the matter while Villanueva fulminated about it at seemingly every opportunity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2024
As Mr. Rove fulminated, an anchor, Megyn Kelly, walked off the set, cameras in tow, down a long corridor to Mr. Mishkin’s operation, and demanded to know if he was confident in his call.
From New York Times ● Sep. 27, 2020
His stance was praised by other veterans on the forum, where many angrily fulminated against a “betrayal” by MPs.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 25, 2019
He there fulminated anathemas against Lambert, duke of Spoleto, and against Adelbert, marquis of Tuscany; against Gosfrid, count of Mans; Bernard, marquis of Sep-temanei; and Hugues, son of Lothaire and Valdvade.
From The Power Of The Popes by Pierre Claude Fran?ois Daunou
It is an unusually nuanced take on a subject that too often generates reflexive fulminating or fawning, and a truly auspicious start to the New Museum’s new chapter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
The unintended effect, however, is of cramped twin biographies, when what we’re here for is a drawn-out colloquy in a tight space: Lewis’ gentle prodding of a rationalist’s edges versus Freud’s fulminating about God’s existence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
With a well-developed culture already in the bottle, they "would have been attacked by a tetanus of the fulminating variety".
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2020
When Big Bird and Oscar occasionally performed together — bird singing ABCs, grouch fulminating — Mr. Spinney operated one puppet while an understudy handled the other, using a vocal recording by Mr. Spinney.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2019
See, he looks with his eyes--he smiles; presently he will say something that will delight us; some heavenly jest; some fulminating sally of wit is playing about his lips.
From The Serapion Brethren. Vol. II by Ernst Theordor Wilhelm Hoffmann
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
