throbbing
Americanadjective
-
beating or pulsing rapidly or forcefully, as the heart under the influence of emotion or excitement.
One may use a sweet, patient tone and words, but the throbbing vein in the temple betrays one’s anger.
-
feeling or exhibiting strong emotion or passion.
As he spoke to the students crashing the climate convention, he was clearly thrilled to be there in that throbbing mass of youthful exuberance.
-
pulsating or vibrating regularly.
The throbbing sound was now at full volume, and it was indeed drums—deep, heavy goatskin drums.
-
being or feeling pain that occurs in rhythmic waves or bursts.
A sinus infection often results in a throbbing headache.
He pounded on the closed door, but with no effect apart from a throbbing fist.
-
full of or characterized by lively energy.
This throbbing metropolis is also the world capital of salsa.
noun
-
throbbings
plural
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the act of beating fast or forcefully, pulsating or vibrating, or occurring in rhythmic waves.
The pain in his shoulder had subsided to a dull throbbing.
Astronomers have measured the throbbing of a sun-like star 24 light-years away.
-
the act or fact of feeling or exhibiting strong emotion or passion.
The throbbing of my rage was so powerful that the ground trembled.
-
lively energy.
Feel the throbbing of the world’s cultures at the annual international festival this weekend!
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of throbbing
First recorded in 1400–50; throb ( def. ) + -ing 2 ( def. ) for the adjective senses; throb ( def. ) + -ing 1 ( def. ) for the noun senses
Explanation
If something's pulsing like a heartbeat, it's throbbing. When you stop and catch your breath after a long run, you might hear your throbbing pulse in your ears. An injury that's throbbing with pain pounds with regular beats: "I have a throbbing headache." Music is often described as throbbing too, beating and pounding with deep bass notes from a club or a car — or maybe your ceiling is vibrating with the throbbing music your upstairs neighbors are playing. To throb is to pulsate, and experts guess the word itself stems from the sound and feeling of pulsating blood.
Vocabulary lists containing throbbing
Kindred
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"The War Works Hard" by Dunya Mikhail
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Neighborhood Odes
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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:
But still, when I speak to him afterwards, his heavily bandaged leg throbbing, he is determined.
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026
The song holds next to none of the grinding desire throbbing through most of The Artist’s oeuvre.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2026
He is a throbbing mass of malevolence, turned up — to reference Reiner’s “This Is Spinal Tap” — to 11.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
The plastic symmetry of “Battleship Potemkin,” its humanity, and its throbbing power still command respect, and Sergei Eisenstein endures as the finest film editor the world has seen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
A walking stick swatted very near my throbbing tail.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
She had found peace in days gone by as she looked calmly out over the waste of waters whither she was floating, and felt no hard throbbings of the heart where love was dying!
From Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale by Ida Glenwood
Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose, Then, only then, her burning heart outflows In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued By baser throbbings.
From Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland by Daniel Turner Holmes
Bichat shows, in his researches on life and death, how the black and carbonized blood disturbs the functions of the brain and acts like a narcotic poison, causing the heart finally to cease its throbbings.
From Martyria or Andersonville Prison by Augustus C. Hamlin
And as if the exuberance of the wish had started her old ailment into new vigor, she has clasped her hands wildly over that bosom, to stay, if it might be, those inordinate throbbings.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 95, September 1865 by Various
So complete the stillness, so dead the very air, the throbbings of her pulses filled the girl with a suffocating sense of her own vitality.
From The Lady of the Mount by Frederic Stewart Isham
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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.
