Definition of: thunder

(thun′dər) noun
1. The sound that accompanies lightning, caused by the sudden heating and expansion of the air along the path of the lightning flash.
2. Any loud, rumbling or booming noise, suggestive of thunder.
3. An awful denunciation or threat; a vehement or powerful utterance, oratorical or other.
4. Rare A lightning stroke; thunderbolt.
—to steal one's thunder To take for one's own use anything especially popular or effective originated by another: said especially of an argument.
—v.i.
1. To give forth a peal or peals of thunder: used impersonally: It thunders.
2. To make a noise like thunder.
3. To utter vehement denunciations or threats.
—v.t.
4. To utter or express with a noise like or suggestive of thunder: The cannon thundered defiance. [OE thunor]
—thun′der·er noun