Word of the Day

: September 10, 2021

fulminate

verb FULL-muh-nayt

What It Means

Fulminate means "to send forth harsh criticisms or insults."

// The writer of the editorial fulminated against the corruption in the state government that has been recently uncovered.

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fulminate in Context

"Talking heads on both the right and the left now are fulminating about the labor shortage." — John Krull, The Republic (Columbus, Indiana), 28 July 2021

Did You Know?

Lightning strikes more than once in the history of fulminate. That word comes from the Latin fulminare, meaning "to strike," a verb usually used to refer to lightning strikes—it is struck from fulmen, Latin for "lightning." When fulminate was taken up by English speakers in the 15th century, it lost much of its ancestral thunder and was used largely as a technical term for the issuing of formal denunciations by ecclesiastical authorities. In time, its original lightning spark returned, describing intense strikes of a tirade.