different between fulminate vs smoulder

English

Etymology

From Latin fulmin?tus, past participle of fulmin? (“lighten, hurl or strike with lightning”), from fulmen (“lightning which strikes and sets on fire, thunderbolt”), from earlier *fulgmen, *fulgimen, from fulge?, fulg? (“flash, lighten”). Doublet of fulmine. More at fulgent.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?f?lm?ne?t/

Verb

fulminate (third-person singular simple present fulminates, present participle fulminating, simple past and past participle fulminated)

1. (intransitive, figuratively) To make a verbal attack.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To issue as a denunciation.
   • 1842, Thomas De Quincey, Cicero (published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine)

     They fulminated the most hostile of all decrees.

   • 1855, William Neilson, Mesmerism in its relation to health and disease (page 46)

     In short, the criticism which the great lexicographer fulminated against an unfortunate author, seems to have been adopted by the profession as applicable to everything under the sun […]

3. (intransitive) To thunder or make a loud noise.
4. (transitive, now rare) To strike with lightning; to cause to explode.
   • 2009, Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice, Vintage 2010, p. 235:

     the present owners couldn't afford the electric bills anymore, several amateur gaffers, sad to say, having already been fulminated trying to bootleg power in off the municipal lines.

Synonyms

• (verbal attack): berate, condemn, criticize, denounce, denunciate, vilify

Translations

Noun

fulminate (plural fulminates)

1. (chemistry) Any salt or ester of fulminic acid, mostly explosive.
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 193:

     On 19 February a jubilant Bigeard announced that his 3rd R.P.C. had seized eighty-seven bombs, seventy kilos of explosive, 5,120 fulminate of mercury detonators, 309 electric detonators, etc.

Translations

Related terms

• fulmination
• fulminator
• fulminatory
• fulminic
• mercury fulminate
• silver fulminate

Italian

Verb

fulminate

1. second-person plural present indicative of fulminare
2. second-person plural imperative of fulminare
3. feminine plural of fulminato

Latin

Adjective

fulmin?te

1. vocative masculine singular of fulmin?tus

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sm??ld?(?)/

Verb

smoulder (third-person singular simple present smoulders, present participle smouldering, simple past and past participle smouldered)

1. (intransitive, chiefly Britain) Alternative form of smolder
   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine Chapter XI

     Lightning may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this again rarely results in flames.

2. (obsolete) To smother; to suffocate; to choke.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Holinshed to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Palsgrave to this entry?)

Noun

smoulder

1. (obsolete) smoke; smother
   • 1573, George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundry Flowres

     The smoulder stops our nose with stench.

Anagrams

• R-modules, moulders, remoulds