fulminate

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfʌlmɪneɪt/, /ˈfʊlmɪneɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfʌlmɪneɪt/, /ˈfʊlmɪneɪt/, /-əneɪt/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (UK):

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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.
   • 2007 January 21, David Brooks, “Mr. Chips Goes to Congress”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     While they were the opposition, Democrats fulminated that the Republicans were so deep in the pockets of Big Pharma that they wouldn’t even let the government negotiate lower drug prices.

   • 2017 February 15, Peter Beinart, “American Institutions Are Fighting Back Against Trump”, in The Atlantic‎:

     To be sure, Trump has fulminated on Twitter against the judges who rebuffed him. But his tirades have earned him a reprimand––if a brief, vague one––from his own Supreme Court nominee.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To issue as a denunciation.
   • 1842, Thomas De Quincey, “Cicero”, 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, published 2010, page 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.

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, published 2006, page 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.

Related terms

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

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

fulminate m (plural fulminates)

1. fulminate

Further reading

• “fulminate”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

Adjective

fulmināte

1. vocative masculine singular of fulminātus

Verb

fulminate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of fulminar combined with te