earthquake

Forms

1.A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.
- 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.
- 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.
2.Such a quake specifically occurring on the planet Earth, as opposed to other celestial bodies.
- 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.A sudden and intense upheaval; a severely disruptive event.
- There was an earthquake this morning.

1.To undergo an earthquake.
- Watch the Philippines very closely for the next little while. There is rumbling and earthquaking deep within Pinatubo and increased earthquaking within Mayon.

Rare· #4148

From Middle English erthequake, corresponding to earth + quake.

Displaced Middle English eorð byfung (“earthquake”) from Old English eorþbeofung (literally “earth shaking”).