fulminate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to explode with a loud noise; detonate.
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to issue denunciations or the like (usually followed byagainst ).
The minister fulminated against legalized vice.
verb (used with object)
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to cause to explode.
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to issue or pronounce with vehement denunciation, condemnation, or the like.
noun
verb
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to make criticisms or denunciations; rail
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to explode with noise and violence
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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
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fulminatesimple
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fulminatessimple
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have fulminatedperfect
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has fulminatedperfect
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am fulminatingprogressive
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are fulminatingprogressive
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is fulminatingprogressive
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have been fulminatingperfect progressive
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has been fulminatingperfect progressive
Past
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fulminatedsimple
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had fulminatedperfect
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was fulminatingprogressive
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were fulminatingprogressive
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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 first trials of the new fulminate were made in the presence of Yakub, and were most successful; the invention proved of the greatest use to the Khalifa.
From Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892 by Wingate, F. R.
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 records Bonhoeffer’s powerful experiences, for example, at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where the preacher Adam Clayton Powell fulminates: “Obeying God means challenging injustice! You don’t just think about God. … You act!”
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2018
She fulminates her major excommunication against duellists, even in the event of their failing to keep their agreement.
From Explanation of Catholic Morals A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals by Stapleton, John H. (John Henry)
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
They fulminated against the notion that affidavits could be submitted after the close of an extradition hearing; it was repugnant to “universally accepted principles of law” for Root even to consider this new evidence.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 2022
Even as the House voted and Trump fulminated, small-town life here went on: Folks finished up work chores, dashed to the post office to send Christmas cards and donned gaudy holiday sweaters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 19, 2019
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
The bishop fulminated from his episcopal throne against the practice, and launched excommunications right and left, but with little effect.
From Count Frontenac Makers of Canada, Volume 3 by LeSueur, William Dawson
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 episode provides a stark example of the foundation fulminating against forcing people from their homes while pursuing evictions against its own residents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2023
In the process, Serse forsakes his betrothed, Amastre, who spends much of the opera fulminating while dressed as a man.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2022
“And she’ll distance herself from her father because he’s going to stay his crazy, fulminating self on Twitter.”
From The Guardian ● Nov. 24, 2020
The Spider is formed after the manner of the common spider, it has a glass body, into which is put one third of a grain of fulminating silver.
From The whole Secret laid Open The complete art of making the chemical fulminating objects by Anonymous
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
