different between lightning vs cloudburst

English

Wikiversity

Etymology

From light(e)n +? -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?la?t.n??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?la?t.n??/, [?l????.n??], [?l????.n??]

Noun

lightning (usually uncountable, plural lightnings)

1. A flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.
2. A discharge of this kind.
3. (figuratively) Anything that moves very fast.
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot, chapter V:

     Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.

4. The act of making bright, or the state of being made bright; enlightenment; brightening, as of the mental powers.

Quotations

• 2008, Kathy Clark, Stand By Your Man, page 280:

  Manny drove a few miles per hour under the speed limit, entranced by the awesome display of lightning streaking out of the clouds toward earth.

Usage notes

• bolt, flash, strike are some of the words used to count lightning.

Coordinate terms

• thunderbolt

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

lightning (not comparable)

1. Extremely fast or sudden; moving (as if) at the speed of lightning.

Translations

Verb

lightning (third-person singular simple present lightnings, present participle lightninging, simple past and past participle lightninged)

1. (impersonal, childish or nonstandard, intransitive) To produce lightning.
   • 1988, Carlo Collodi, Roberto Innocenti, The adventures of Pinocchio

     I don't know, Father, but believe me, it has been a horrible night — one that I'll never forget. It thundered and lightninged, and I was very hungry.

Usage notes

• The standard, but rare, verb for "produce lightning" is lighten, used only in the impersonal form "it lightens", or as "it’s lightening".

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• cloud-burst

Etymology

cloud +? burst

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kla?d?b?st/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kla?d?b??st/
• Hyphenation: cloud?burst

Noun

cloudburst (plural cloudbursts)

1. A sudden heavy rainstorm.
   • 1899, Edith Wharton, "A Cup of Cold Water" in The Greater Inclination:

     [B]ut the sound . . . expressed an utter abandonment to grief; not the cloud-burst of some passing emotion, but the slow down-pour of a whole heaven of sorrow.

   • 1936 Aug. 17, "Miscellany," Time (retrieved 20 May 2014):

     In Uniontown, Pa., John Walchesky & family rushed from their house when lightning set it afire, rushed in again when a cloudburst put out the blaze.

   • 2007 Feb. 25, Norman Howard, "Devotion, chapter 1" (book excerpt), New York Times (retrieved 20 May 2014):

     [H]e walked across the lawn, wet from a fleeting late-afternoon cloudburst, the first rain in a month.

Synonyms

• cloudbust

Translations