earthquake

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English

Earthquake tsunami wave animation.

Etymology

From Middle English erthequake, corresponding to earth +‎ quake. Displaced Middle English eorð byfung (“earthquake”) from Old English eorþbeofung (literally “earth shaking”).

Pronunciation

Noun

earthquake (plural earthquakes)

  1. A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
      Her alablaster brest she soft did kis, / Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake, / As it an Earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake.
    • 2006 October 6, Declan Walsh, The Guardian:
      Last year's earthquake crushed his house, his livelihood and very nearly his leg, he said, pointing to a plastered limb that refuses to heal.
  2. (planetary geology) Such a quake specifically occurring on the planet Earth, as opposed to other celestial bodies.
    • 1988, Jürgen Oberst, Yosio Nakamura, “A seismic risk for the lunar base”, in The Second Conference on Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century, volume 1, NASA, pages 231–233:
      Since the response of some man-made structures to the ground motion near the epicenter is highly dependent on frequency, a significant difference in potential damage to the structures is expected between earthquakes and moonquakes.
    • 2006, Bruce A. Bolt, Earthquakes, Fifth Edition:
      The wave patterns, too, are strikingly different: The secondary (S) waves and surface waves on lunar seismograms are not generally as clearly defined and distinct as are those of earthquakes.
  3. (figuratively) A sudden and intense upheaval; a severely disruptive event.
    • 2019 July 11, John Thornhill, “Does tech threaten to rerun the worst of the Industrial Revolution?”, in Financial Times‎:
      As we have seen, economic earthquakes often result in political shockwaves. […] He highlights a correlation between those states with the highest robot density and those states that unexpectedly swung behind Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, namely Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
    • 2024 March 20, Jon Henley, “Leo Varadkar steps down as Irish prime minister in shock move”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:
      Leo Varadkar has announced he is standing down as Ireland’s prime minister and also giving up his role as leader of the Fine Gael party in the ruling coalition, in a surprise move described by pundits as a “political earthquake” for the country.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

earthquake (third-person singular simple present earthquakes, present participle earthquaking, simple past and past participle earthquaked)

  1. (intransitive) To undergo an earthquake.
    • 1993, Gyeorgos C. Hatonn, The Best of Times: The Worst of Times, page 129:
      Watch the Philippines very closely for the next little while. There is rumbling and earthquaking deep within Pinatubo and increased earthquaking within Mayon.

See also

Further reading

Anagrams

Scots

Etymology

Borrowed from English earthquake; compare yirdquauk.

Noun

earthquake (plural earthquakes)

  1. earthquake
    Synonym: yirdquauk
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