AVALANCHE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does avalanche mean? 

• AVALANCHE (noun)
  The noun AVALANCHE has 2 senses:

1. a slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain

2. a sudden appearance of an overwhelming number of things

  Familiarity information: AVALANCHE used as a noun is rare.

• AVALANCHE (verb)
  The verb AVALANCHE has 1 sense:

1. gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow

  Familiarity information: AVALANCHE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AVALANCHE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("avalanche" is a kind of...):

slide ((geology) the descent of a large mass of earth or rocks or snow etc.)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "avalanche"):

lahar (an avalanche of volcanic water and mud down the slopes of a volcano)

Derivation:

avalanche (gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A sudden appearance of an overwhelming number of things

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

the program brought an avalanche of mail

Hypernyms ("avalanche" is a kind of...):

happening; natural event; occurrence; occurrent (an event that happens)

• AVALANCHE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they avalanche    ... he / she / it avalanches   
Past simple: avalanched   
Past participle: avalanched   
-ing form: avalanching   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Gather into a huge mass and roll down a mountain, of snow

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

avalanche; roll down

Hypernyms (to "avalanche" is one way to...):

come down; descend; fall; go down (move downward and lower, but not necessarily all the way)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

avalanche (a slide of large masses of snow and ice and mud down a mountain)

 Context examples 

Several minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail where the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and loose soil.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The landslide deposits appear similar to those left behind by avalanches seen on Earth.

(Landslides on Ceres Reflect Ice Content, NASA)

The goal would be to study the regions over time to see if there are any changes and to rule out other causes for the changes, such as dry avalanches.

(NASA Weighs Use of Rover to Image Potential Mars Water Sites, NASA)

Immense glaciers approached the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and marked the smoke of its passage.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was an avalanche of fury that Johnson strove vainly to fend off.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

This avalanche of financial signs in December and January could also mean you might be overseeing budgets as part of your job.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Once more also we were able to communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them—men and women, the aged and the children too—and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)