[f. STORM sb. (OE. had styrman, early ME. STURME v.)]
1. intr. Of the elements or weather: To be tempestuous or stormy, to rage.
14[?]. Chaucer’s Boeth., I. met. vii. (1868), 29. Þe trouble wynde þat hyȝt auster stormynge [Camb. MS. turnyng: L. mare volvens] and walwyng þe see medleþ þe heete.
1564. T. Stapleton, trans. Staphylus’ Apol., Pref. 3. As the quiet passanger when the sea stormeth.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Dec., 131. So now he [winter] stormes with many a sturdy stoure.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., X. 74. From Shetland straddling wide, his foote on Thuly sets: Whence storming, all the vast Deucalidon hee [Boreas] threts.
fig. c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, I. 148. That … he, whose bow thus stormd For our offences, may be calmd.
b. impers. To blow violently; also to rain, snow, etc., heavily. Now only U.S.
1530. Palsgr., 130. Il tempeste, it stormeth.
1598. W. Phillip, trans. Linschoten, 5/2. The nearer wee are vnto the land, the more it stormeth, raineth, thundreth and calmeth.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, v. Throughout the night it stormed violently—rain, hail, snow and sleet beating upon the vessel.
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 336. To storm, to blow with violence; impersonally, as, it storms. We use it improperly in the sense of to rain or to snow.
1856. Miss Warner, Hills Shatemuc, xix. Come in … it is going to storm hard…. It’s going to be a bad storm;—you’ll be better under here.
1858. M. F. Maury, in Diana F. M. Corbin, Life (1888), 168. It is now snowing and storming furiously.
1872. ‘Mark Twain,’ Innoc. Abr., ii. 20. It was still raining. And not only raining, but storning. ‘Outside’ … there was a tremendous sea on.
1894. Chamb. Jrnl., 16 June, 376/1. Oh, but the nuts fall much more quickly when it storms.
c. transf. To rush with the violence of a storm.
1842. Tennyson, Vis. Sin, 25. The music … Rose again from where it seem’d to fail, Storm’d in orbs of song, a growing gale. Ibid. (1854), Charge of Light Brigade, iii. Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death.
2. trans. To make stormy. In quots. fig. to trouble, vex, disturb. Also pass.
1597. Shaks., Lover’s Compl., i. I … Ere long espied a fickle maid … Storming her world with sorrowes, wind and raine.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, lxiv. Our simulated thunderclaps Which tell us counterfeited truths—these same Are—sound, when music storms the soul, perhaps?—Sight, [etc.].
1883. H. W. Beecher, in Chr. World Puipit, XXIV. 122/3. I honour men who are stormed like the ocean, whose sky is dark, on whom the waves of trouble roll.
3. intr. To complain with rough and violent language; to rage. Const. at, against (a grievance or person).
1553. Respublica, I. iii. 211. Avar. Feyth, manne, I spake but even to prove your pacyence, that yf thowe haddest grunted or stormed thereat, Adul. Naie, fewe times doe I vse suche lowde manier as that. Ibid., III. vi. 935. Ye muste storme & sharpelye take hym vp for stumbling.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 1225/1. The Priestes … began to grudge & storme against Tyndall.
1586. A. Day, Eng. Secretorie, II. (1625), 26. Such odde kinde of reports … the least whereof would make you storme to the gall.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., I. iii. 138. Why looke you how you storme, I would be friends with you.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1621), 1254. Storming against their Generall for not being a coward, as they themselves were.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, V. 868. O Father stormst thou not To see vs take these wrongs from men?
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 15. Oh they storme and rage as a Beare robbed of her Whelpes.
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1824), I. 90. She curses and storms at me like a trooper.
1797. Mrs. Berkeley, Poems G. M. Berkeley, Pref. p. ccxxviii. Mrs. Berkeley used to storm nobly on these occasions, to the great diversion of her amiable husband.
1813. Byron, Br. Abydos, I. xiii. And he so often storms at nought.
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, I. xiv. 120. He’ll storm and threaten and stop the supplies for a month or so.
1885. L’pool Daily Post, 30 June, 4/7. They storm like very demons when anyone ventures to hint that the Highland crofter is not the paragon of the human race.
1889. Barrie, Window in Thrums, xii. 108. I do not want to storm at the man.
b. quasi-trans. with complement.
1839. Bailey, Festus, 286. Although … they may have put God from them—Disowned His prophets … and stormed His curses back to Him; yet … He can pity still.
1891. Kipling, Light that Failed, xv. 335. Dick roused, struck him over the head with the butt, and stormed himself wide awake.
4. pass. To be exposed to the severity of the weather; to suffer severely from cold. Now dial.
c. 1440. York Myst., xiv. 16. And yf we here all nyght abide, We shall be stormed in þis steede.
c. 1636. Strafford, in Browning, Life (1892), 187. He was found dead … and in a cold night and lodging, stormed to death.
1828. Carr, Craven Gloss., Storm’d, starved, pinched with cold.
5. trans. To make (seed-hay) storm-proof by piling the sheaves in small stacks. local.
1862. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XXIII. 63. Ere it [the rain] arrives … several acres of his hay-seed are already in the field stack. Thus it is saved, by being stormed, as the local [Warwickshire] phrase well expresses it.
6. Mil. To make a vigorous assault on (a fortified position); to take or attempt to take by storm or assault.
1645. Cromwell, in Carlyle, Lett. & Sp. (1845), I. 227. By means of this entrance of Colonel Hammond they did storm the Fort on that part which was inward.
1646. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. I. 54. The General Major of the horses wold haue the wallis of the citie stormit vpoun all quarteris.
1651. Lamont, Diary (Maitl. Club), 32. They stormed Dundie, and caried the towne.
1692. Prior, Ode imit. Hor., 31. All Day to Mount the Trench, to Storm the Breach.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., II. 260. Several of their bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress.
1874. Green, Short Hist., i. § 6. 49. Æthelred stormed the Danish camp at Benfleet.
b. transf. and fig.
1652. R. Loveday, Hymen’s Præludia, 301. He basely resolves to storm her chastity.
1697. Collier, Ess. Mor. Subj., II. (ed. 2), 99. Thus People are stormed out of their Reason and Inclinations; plagued into a Compliance; and forced to yield in their own Defence.
1703. S. Sewall, Diary, 16 March (1879), II. 75. So should we patiently … sing the Praises of God,… though Storm’d by the last efforts of Antichrist.
1730. T. Boston, Mem., xii. (1899), 395. The toothache has stormed my lower teeth so that I think they are beginning to give way too.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. xlix. Here the bold peasant storm’d the dragon’s nest.
1820. Keats, Eve of S. Agnes, x. A hundred swords Will storm his heart, Love’s feverous citadel.
1841. Thackeray, Gt. Hoggarty Diam., x. She would have stormed Lady Jane Preston’s door, and forced her way up-stairs.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvi. III. 697. At last it seemed that heaven had been stormed by the violence of supplication: the truth came out, and many lies with it.
1910. Ld. Rosebery, Chatham, x. 220. Pitt had apparently determined, in the jargon of that day, to storm the Closet.
7. intr. a. Mil. To rush to an assault or attack.
1632. Swed. Intelligencer, II. 47. The Scots … forced the garrison into the inner port; they Storming in together with them.
1645. Cromwell, in Carlyle, Lett. & Sp. (1845), I. 226. Colonel Montague and Colonel Pickering, who stormed at Lawford’s Gate … presently entered. Ibid. The Major-General’s regiment being to storm towards Froom River.
1859. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Note-bks. (1872), II. 267. A great gap in the ramparts—it may have been a breach which was once stormed through.
1860. Froude, Hist. Eng., V. 207. Again the next day they stormed up to the walls.
1877. Tennyson, Harold, V. i. Our javelins Answer their arrows. All the Norman foot Are storming up the hill.
b. transf. To rush with violence.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. II. vii. How, in this wild Universe, which storms in on him … shall poor man find … footing to stand on.
1863. Longf., Wayside Inn, I. Falcon, 98. The boy, rejoicing in his strength, Stormed down the terraces from length to length.
1870. Tyndall, Fragm. Sci. (1879), I. v. 133. On placing the flame at some distance below the beam, the same dark masses stormed upwards.
Hence Stormed ppl. a., taken by storm.
1841. G. P. R. James, Brigand, ii. The cold wind rushed in fiercely like a besieging army into a stormed city.
1888. E. A. Freeman, Four Oxf. Lect., 95. It is our one recorded example of the fate of a stormed town.
