thunderstroke
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of thunderstroke
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.
"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
Like the Marne, it represents the checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of the Germans to end the war swiftly by a thunderstroke.
From World's War Events, Vol. II by Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds
The world seems to be on tiptoe, listening for a thunderstroke of Fate.
From The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days Scenes In The Great War by Sir Hall Caine
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 Nathaniel Hawthorne
This was a thunderstroke to the unfortunate cavalier.
From The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 3 by Frederick Whymper
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.
