thunderstroke

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"It is one of the mysteries of nature," he said in 1906, after his favorite daughter Susy died of meningitis at 24, "that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunderstroke like that and live."

From Time Magazine Archive

Like the Marne, it represents the checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of the Germans to end the war swiftly by a thunderstroke.

From World's War Events, Vol. II by Reynolds, Francis J. (Francis Joseph)

To her hearer the final phrase was like a thunderstroke.

From Demos by Gissing, George

These words fell upon Charlotte like a thunderstroke: she rose from her seat half-fainting, and unconscious of what she did.

From The Sorrows of Young Werther by Boylan, R. Dillon

My father was then in the zenith of his prosperity, and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this loss—this heavy blow—came upon him like a thunderstroke.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various