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

The child did not bow under this sudden blow of fate, which seemed to put an end to his existence ere it had well begun; he received the thunderstroke standing.

From The Man Who Laughs by Hugo, Victor

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 Reynolds, Francis J. (Francis Joseph)

He had had, up to this hour, in the sky within him, a rain of scruples, a tempest of doubts, a thunderstroke of lust; now was silence and death.

From En Route by Huysmans, J.-K. (Joris-Karl)

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