thunderhead
Americannoun
-
the upper portion of a cumulus cloud characterized by dense, sharply defined, cauliflowerlike upper parts and sometimes by great verticality.
noun
Etymology
Origin of thunderhead
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.
Once a prehistoric denizen of the deeps, it comes ashore on a tsunami tide, tall as a thunderhead, shrugging off artillery as it bellows a foghorn scream.
From Scientific American • Nov. 3, 2023
Last Wednesday, though, conditions led to the creation of a larger, taller cloud called a pyrocumulonimbus, which is similar to a thunderhead.
From New York Times • Jul. 19, 2021
A thunderhead towers above the rising sun, and the picture turns out beautifully.
From Slate • May 11, 2015
Early that morning, a towering thunderhead had rumbled in from the east, stripping branches from the cottonwoods and flooding the streets of Oklahoma City.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 1, 2014
Mount Elgon brooded over the town and the trees, rising to an undefined height, its profile buried in an anvil thunderhead, bathed in golden light.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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.
