EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR AVALANCHE
Dorcas had no dreams so happy that such an avalanche could not sweep them aside.
Fandor was too stunned by the avalanche of incidents to move.
He felt as if everything were slipping away from him, and he was trying to stand on an avalanche.
With Platina, ca. 1474, an avalanche of cookery literature started.
What could have brought down upon him this avalanche of indignation and eloquence?
They say that an avalanche can be brought down from a mountain by a whispered word.
The stone wall became an avalanche, and started down the slope.
Rollo thought that Henry must be mistaken in supposing it an avalanche.
The danger was not from rock and avalanche, but from something yet more romantic.
Huge loose boulders were tumbled in an avalanche everywhere.
WORD ORIGIN
1763, from French avalanche (17c.), from Romansch (Swiss) avalantze "descent," altered (by metathesis of -l- and -v-, probably influenced by Old French avaler "to descend, go down") from Savoy dialect lavantse, from Provençal lavanca "avalanche," perhaps from a pre-Latin Alpine language (the suffix -anca suggests Ligurian). As a verb, from 1872.