a. [f. STENTOR2 + -IAN. Cf. Gr. Στεντόρειος, L. Stentoreus.]
1. Of the voice: Loud, like that of Stentor (see STENTOR2 1); very loud and far-reaching; hence, of uttered sounds, song, laughter and the like.
1605. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iii. III. Law, 20. My Stentorian Song,… Shall brim be heard from India even to Spain. Ibid. (1606), II. iv. II. Magnificence, 264. Whose Stentorian sound Doth far and wide o’r all the world rebound.
1623. Cockeram, I. Stentorian-voice, a voice so loud and strong, as the voice of one hundred men.
1711. Countrey-Man’s Lett. to Curat, 31. The Mighty Talkers … who Conjure down the whole Modest Part of the Creation with a Stentorian noise.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, vii. 169. An uproarious dance follows, accompanied with stentorian song.
1872. C. Gibbon, For the King, xxxviii. ‘Hold’ exclaimed the general, in stentorian tones.
fig. 1638. Featly, Strict. Lyndom., II. 77. What a lowd and Stentorian untruth is here uttered by a foule mouthed Iesuit?
2. That utters stentorian sounds.
Stentorian trumpet = STENTOROPHONIC trumpet.
1690. Pagan Prince, xli. 119. Setting a Stentorian Trumpet to his Mouth, [he] call’d out to the Belgians in a most Terrible and Astonishing Tone.
1875. F. T. Buckland, Log-Book, 27. An invitation issuing from stentorian lungs to ‘Step hinside and see’ [etc.].
1878. H. W. Bates, Stanford’s Compend. Geog. Central Amer., etc. 187. Here [Trinidad] we meet, among the monkey tribe, with … the stentorian Howlers (Mycetes).
Hence Stentorianly adv.
1880. B. E. Hill, Playing about, I. 206. On one of these excursions, to try an echo, he called stentorianly,
‘How do you do?’
1880. Mrs. Compton Reade, Brown Hand & White, ix. ‘We are going to smoke,’ [said she] stentorianly.
