thunderstroke

American  

[thuhn-der-strohk] / ˈθʌn dərˌstroʊk /

noun

1. a stroke of lightning accompanied by thunder.

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Etymology

Origin of thunderstroke

First recorded in 1580–90; thunder + stroke ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thunderstroke

"It is one of the mysteries of nature," he said in 1906, after his favorite daughter Susy died of meningitis at 24, "that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunderstroke like that and live."

From Time Magazine Archive

Every word was a thunderstroke to his heart.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative by Wilson, John Mackay

My father was then in the zenith of his prosperity, and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this loss—this heavy blow—came upon him like a thunderstroke.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various

And he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he were about to smite them with a thunderstroke right amidships, because Athens, so little while ago, had been at war with Crete.

From Tanglewood Tales by Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Elijah thought, that, if Jackson had not been killed by his own men after delivering that thunderstroke, Hooker would have been annihilated.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 99, January, 1866 by Various