Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Dazzling or stunning in effect.
- adj. Medicine Occurring suddenly and severely. Used of a disease.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Sudden and overwhelming in effect; like a lightning-stroke.
- Specifically, in pathology, beginning in a very sudden and severe form: said of disease.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having an awesome and overwhelming effect.
Etymologies
- French, from present participle of foudroyer, to strike with lightning, from foudre, lightning, from Old French fouldre, from Latin fulgur, from fulgēre, to flash; see bhel-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A variety of grass favored for pastures. foudroyant”
“Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal, -- if these French adjectives may be naturalized for this one particular exigency.”
“Splendid!" said the Widow -- and to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal, -- if these French adjectives may be naturalized for this one particular exigency.”
“Mornington (author of the well-known glees) as a cousin, and as intimately connected with her brother the great _foudroyant_ performer on the organ.”
“(all that was objectionable was attributed to this poor lady) had been so abominably clear-sighted, so odiously presuming as to have suspected this, his sudden blaze of anger was _foudroyant_.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘foudroyant’.
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phrontistery - f
from phrontistery.info
fabaceous, fabiform, fabulist, faburden, face-cord, facetiae, facia, facinorous, factious, factitious, factitive, factive and 418 more...
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Another 250 Spelling Words
Another range of words from the intermediate to the advanced speller's level.
cherimoya, parthenogenesis, sommelier, bupkis, kichel, voulge, indivisibility, retiarius, sewellel, vihuela, ossature, jalfrezi and 238 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Its a Stretch
pandiculation, persiflage, quixotic, abjure, non sequitur, ouevre, addlepated, shibboleth, bloviate, mundicidious, illaqueate, frigorific and 13 more...
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Vega's Logophile Dictionary
Words I've heard/read in use, words being learnt, words that I want to eventually use in everyday language, words that are high-brow and elitist and scholarly and obscure, words that display the wo...
parsimonious, torpor, recalcitrant, plebeian, vitriol, gumption, augur, aestival, celerity, diaphanous, farrago, nonpareil and 287 more...
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The Most Beautiful Words in the Engli...
mellifluous, obscure, star-crossed, undulating, solstice, messiah, audacious, solace, twilight, wanderlust, lovelorn, byzantine and 219 more...
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collection
sanguine, vie, antebellum, glacial, treacly, iconoclast, lissom, anathema, serendipity, parsimonious, histrionic, contemptuous and 279 more...
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Mollusque's miscellany
A mixture of words that I like or have commented on, along with ones parked here so they'd be listed somewhere or remind me of lists I want to make.
oranger, monographer, preoccupied, bu, bobization, coinventor, tetrapyloctomy, borgmannian, suspercollate, manhug, mancrush, obituarist and 604 more...
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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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Sunbeam
Zoom'om'om; inspiration, vitality, solemness, and sunrays...
inspiral, activation, envision, myselves, recognition, imagination, repattern, exponential, flashforward, syncronicity, swish, sensation and 177 more...
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kenspeckle's Words
kenspeckle, milquetoast, effluvium, kaboom, maelstrom, ennui, alpenglow, defenestration, schadenfreude, autochthonous, obstreperous, lachrymose and 124 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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beautiful words
quench, metropolitan, dollop, cucumber, aesthetic, superfluous, gastronomy, nymph, obsequious, serendipity, champagne, gossamer and 125 more...
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An Unspecific Gathering
Recently added to be organized (perhaps) later.
metaeuphoria, metaeuphoria, protologism, neologism, contextual, commingling, meta, euphoria, elucidation, disambiguation, hypertextual, kenspeckle and 136 more...
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Words I Like
Random vocabulary words that I am particularly fond of.
absquatulate, anthropophagy, bibliobibuli, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, brobdingnagian, brummagem, bugaboo, callipygian, cataglottism, chiaroscuro and 92 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for foudroyant.
whichbe Sudden and overwhelming in effect; dazzling. May 12, 2008