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THROBBING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A sound with a strong rhythmic beat
Example:
the throbbing of the engines
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("throbbing" is a kind of...):
sound (the sudden occurrence of an audible event)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An instance of rapid strong pulsation (of the heart)
Example:
he felt a throbbing in his head
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("throbbing" is a kind of...):
beat; heartbeat; pulsation; pulse (the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart)
Derivation:
throb (pulsate or pound with abnormal force)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Pounding or beating strongly or violently
Example:
the throbbing engine of the boat
Classified under:
Similar:
rhythmic; rhythmical (recurring with measured regularity)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb throb
Context examples:
And amid all this bursting, rending, throbbing of awakening life, under the blazing sun and through the soft-sighing breezes, like wayfarers to death, staggered the two men, the woman, and the huskies.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
There’s something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
And as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression? —that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
On the third day out we were aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn, coming and going fitfully throughout the morning.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In my aching head the one thought was throbbing that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable copy for the Gazette when I could obtain permission to use it.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxi cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
