Library / English Dictionary

AVALANCHE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sudden appearance of an overwhelming number of things

Example:

the program brought an avalanche of mail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("avalanche" is a kind of...):

happening; natural event; occurrence; occurrent (an event that happens)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("avalanche" is a kind of...):

slide ((geology) the descent of a large mass of earth or rocks or snow etc.)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "avalanche"):

lahar (an avalanche of volcanic water and mud down the slopes of a volcano)

Derivation:

avalanche (gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow

Synonyms:

avalanche; roll down

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "avalanche" is one way to...):

come down; descend; fall; go down (move downward and lower, but not necessarily all the way)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

avalanche (a slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain)

Credits

 Context examples: 

As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I have seen, he said, the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)