thunder

«thunder» in Mova's school dictionary: The loud crash or rumbling sound in the sky that comes… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (thunder — uncountable; a clap/roll of thunder); verb (thunder, thunders, thundered, thundering)

meaning for a pupil

1) The loud crash or rumbling sound in the sky that comes after lightning. tree →

2) Verb: to make thunder: «It thundered all night». tree →

3) A very loud noise like thunder: the thunder of hooves. tree →

4) Verb: to move or speak very loudly: «The train thundered past». tree →

sense in the lessons

In science: lightning heats the air very fast; the air expands with a bang, which is thunder; sound travels slower than light, so you hear thunder after you see lightning; about 3 seconds between flash and bang means about 1 km away (5 seconds, about 1 mile). In safety: «When thunder roars, go indoors». Phrases: thunder and lightning, a clap of thunder, roll of thunder, thunderstorm, steal someone's thunder, thunderstruck.

examples

• We heard thunder in the distance. tree →
• Thunder comes after lightning because sound is slower than light. tree →
• When thunder roars, go indoors. tree →
• The dog hides under the bed during thunder. tree →
• There was a loud clap of thunder. tree →
• The horses thundered across the field. tree →
• I counted 9 seconds between the flash and the thunder, so the storm was about 3 km away. tree →
• Thunderstorms often happen on hot summer days. tree →

note

Uncountable: «a clap of thunder», not «a thunder». Thunder itself cannot hurt you; lightning can. In maths: seconds ÷ 3 ≈ kilometres, seconds ÷ 5 ≈ miles to the storm.

In the corpora

• "dǎ léi le" means "it's thundering"; in slang "léi rén" means shocking or cringe.
• Lightning is a giant electric spark; thunder is the sound of the air around it heated so fast that it bursts outward.
• Today experts say even more simply: when thunder roars, go indoors.
• Thunder is the sound of air suddenly heated by lightning and expanding very fast.
• If thunder comes 30 seconds or less after a flash, go inside a building or a hard-topped car.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «thunder» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.