Earthquake

[f. EARTH sb.¹ + QUAKE sb.]

  1.  A shaking of the ground; usually spec. a convulsion of the earth’s surface produced by volcanic or similar forces within the crust.

c. 1340.  Cursor M., 20499 (Trin.). An erþequake [v.r. erthdin] coom þat shoke alle þinge.

1382.  Pol. Poems (1859), I. 252. The pestilens, and the eorthe-qwake, Theose … thinges Beoth tokenes.

1432–50.  trans. Higden (Rolls), III. 305. As thro an erthe qwake.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, VIII. iv. 131. By fors of thunder or erdquayk wyth a clap.

1583.  Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 73. Thee doors, thee laurel, thee mount with terribil earth quake Doo totter shiuering.

1635.  N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. ix. 156. After an Earth-quake many new springs and fountaines discouered themselues.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (ed. 3), I. 93. I plainly saw it was a terrible Earthquake, for the Ground I stood on shook three times at about eight Minutes distance.

1821.  Shelley, Hellas, 5. All its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted … Before an earthquake’s tread.

1864.  R. Mallet, in Q. Jrnl. Sci., I. 57. What, then, is Earthquake? It is the transit of a wave or waves of elastic compression in any direction … through the substance and surface of the Earth, from any centre of impulse.

  b.  fig.

1641.  Milton, Animadv. (1851), 188. Whosoever … so earnestly labours to keep such an incumbring surcharge of earthly things, cannot but have an earth-quake still in his bones.

1662.  Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 310. In this age, wherein there is an earthquake of ancient hospitals.

1835.  L. Hunt, Capt. Sword, II. lviii. See where comes the horse-tempest again, Visible earthquake.

1868.  Bright, in Observer, 15 March, 2/4. The great social and political earthquake under which Ireland is heaving.

  attrib.  1814.  Byron, Ode Napoleon, 30. The earthquake voice of Victory.

  2.  Comb. a. attrib., as earthquake-fiend, -gown, -pendulum-microphone, -shock, -voice, -wave.

1821.  Shelley, Prometh. Unb., I. 38. The *Earthquake-fiends are charged To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds.

1750.  H. Walpole, Lett. Sir H. Mann, 2 April. Several women have made *earthquake gowns, that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all to-night [an earthquake having been predicted].

1882.  Nature, XXVI. 220. For the study of … seismological movements of the earth’s crust as revealed by the microphone … Dr. A. V. G. Mocenigo … has devised an *earthquake-pendulum-microphone.

1878.  Huxley, Physiogr., 188. *Earthquake-shocks are happily of rare occurrence in this country. Ibid. (1893), 187 An *earthquake-wave is a vibration of the solid crust of the earth.

  b.  instrumental, as earthquake-rifted, -ruined, -shaken, -swallowed adjs.

1819.  Shelley, Prometh. Unb., I. New fire From *earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow Shook its portentous hair. Ibid., II. iv. The lurid smoke Of *earthquake-ruined cities.

1860.  Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. IX. iv. 240. Silent villages, *earthquake-shaken, gleam in white ruin.

1839.  Bailey, Festus, ix. (1848), 102. *Earthquake-swallowed cities.