fulminate
Americanverb (used without object)
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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
-
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
-
nonfulminatingadjective
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unfulminatedadjective
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unfulminatingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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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
“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 candidate himself would fulminate in his own speech about violence in the streets, but Don Jr. eloquently heralded his father’s common touch.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2020
Flint-lock muskets were supplanted about 1830-1840 by the percussion musket, in which a fulminate cap was used.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" 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 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
One of the shanty men might have dropped a box of fulminates.
From Peter: a novel of which he is not the hero by Francis Hopkinson Smith
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
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
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
Kim Jong-il was exasperated by his compatriots’ lack of drive and creativity, and bizarrely fulminated against excessive ideology and dogma in North Korean films, secret recordings aired in a new documentary reveal.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 3, 2016
Despite the remonstrances of the hermit-laborer, he dashed in among the startled slaves, and fulminated his anathemas.
From The Poniard's Hilt Or Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres by Eugène Sue
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
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
It was an era of fervent meetings and fulminating resolutions.
From A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
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