pulse-pounding

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌls ˈpaʊndɪŋ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pulse pound‧ing

pulse-pounding (comparative more pulse-pounding, superlative most pulse-pounding)

1. That increases the heartbeat rate, especially as a result of excitement or fear.

   Synonyms: exciting, terrifying; see also Thesaurus:exciting, Thesaurus:frightening

   Antonyms: boring, dull, uninteresting; see also Thesaurus:boring

   • 1967 September, “Announcing … The Big Ten ”, in Robert G. Forman, editor, The Michigan Alumnus, volume LXXIV, number 1, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 30:

     All the thrills, chills and spills of pulse-pounding sport adventure! […] 150,000 words of thrill-packed sports text gives you the pulse-pounding story … how the Big Ten grew from a small-time bunch of upstart Westerners into the nation's mightiest collegiate conference …

   • 1991 February 14, Peter Travers, “The Silence of the Lambs [film review]”, in Rolling Stone‎, archived from the original on 5 December 2017:

     The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.

   • 2003, W. C. Leadbeater, “Return of the Dread Mutant Killer Glaucoma”, in The Mind-warp Era: A Novel, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 114:

     Suddenly a great, dark shadow passed between the pulse-pounding blasts and my miry form. I saw in astonishment that Nekbael flew along the dim hallway on monstrous bat wings. The demon vampire ripped the pulse-pounding beamer from the hands of the evil pimp.

   • 2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 5 March 2018:

     Kevin Williamson’s script justly deserves praise for its cleverness and tactic of treating the audience like it was in on the joke, but ultimately, it was Craven’s ability to still deliver a pulse-pounding horror flick and ideal date movie that drove the film so far into the black.