Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A torrential flow of lava, whether molten or congealed.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Racing through the galleries of the Hive, clambering over the rocks upon the shore, one day skating far away across the frozen ocean, the next fishing in the lake that was kept liquid by the heat of the lava-torrent, the two children led a life of perpetual enjoyment.

    Off on a Comet 2003

  • The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are probably of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660) where the dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath: Sometimes the confined monster issues in a destructive lava-torrent -- Bellerophon and the Chimsera.

    Old Calabria Norman Douglas 1910

  • Racing through the galleries of the Hive, clambering over the rocks upon the shore, one day skating far away across the frozen ocean, the next fishing in the lake that was kept liquid by the heat of the lava-torrent, the two children led a life of perpetual enjoyment.

    Off on a Comet 1877

  • Arrived at this point, the lava-torrent leaped over the precipice in a vast cascade, and with a thundering noise, arising chiefly from the crashing and breaking up of the solid crust, which was in a great measure pounded to atoms by the fall; it throwing up such vast clouds of dust as to awaken an alarm that a fresh eruption had begun at this place, which is within the wooded region.

    The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Charles Morris 1877

  • But even this last retreat was now closed to them, and the lava-torrent, flowing over the edge of the granite wall, began to pour down upon the beach its cataracts of fire.

    The Secret of the Island Jules Verne 1866

  • Hive, clambering over the rocks upon the shore, one day skating far away across the frozen ocean, the next fishing in the lake that was kept liquid by the heat of the lava-torrent, the two children led a life of perpetual enjoyment.

    Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space Jules Verne 1866

  • The sea beneath, stormily dancing, flashed back from all its crest the same red glow, shining like a ridged lava-torrent in its first combustion.

    Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete Series I, II, and III John Addington Symonds 1866

  • The sea beneath, stormily dancing, flashed back from all its crest the same red glow, shining like a ridged lava-torrent in its first combustion.

    Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Third series John Addington Symonds 1866

  • It includes all the most terrible of atmospheric phenomena -- lightnings of extraordinary vividness; thunders that peal and reverberate as if they would rend the echoes asunder; torrents of rain that pour down upon the mountain and its neighbourhood, hissing like thousands of serpents when they fall on the glowing lava-torrent; and whirlwinds that sweep the volcanic ashes round and round in vast eddies, and before whose violence no man of mortal mould is able for a moment to stand.

    Wonders of Creation Anonymous

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