thunder

Thunder is preceded by lightning.

With each clap of thunder echoing from one high building to another the noise was terrific.

1953 July, Allen Rowley, “First Impressions of American Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 493:

The loud rumbling, cracking, or crashing sound caused by expansion of rapidly heated air around a lightning bolt.

Off in the distance, he heard the thunder of hoofbeats, signalling a stampede.

A deep, rumbling noise resembling thunder.

The thunders of the Vatican could no longer strike into the heart of princes.

1847, William H. Prescott, A History of the Conquest of Peru:

An alarming or startling threat or denunciation.

The revenging gods / 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend.

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

(obsolete) The discharge of electricity; a thunderbolt.

Shortly after I announced my pregnancy, he stole my thunder with his news of landing his dream job.

Adam's fall and Vico's thunder are embodied in a word of a hundred letters, the first of ten thunders in the Wake.

1996, William York Tindall, A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake, page 31:

en-noun

thunder (countable and uncountable, plural thunders)

→ Alemannic German: Thönder

→ Japanese: サンダー (sandā)

→ Tagalog: tanders

→ Tok Pisin: tanda

From Middle English thunder, thonder, thundre, thonre, thunnere, þunre, from Old English þunor (“thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *þunr, from Proto-Germanic *þunraz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ten-, *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”).
Compare astound, astonish, stun. Germanic cognates include West Frisian tonger, Dutch donder, German Donner, Old Norse Þórr (English Thor), Danish torden, Norwegian Nynorsk tore. Other cognates include Persian تندر (tondar), Latin tonō, detonō, Ancient Greek στένω (sténō), στενάζω (stenázō), στόνος (stónos), Στέντωρ (Sténtōr), Irish torann, Welsh taran, Gaulish Taranis. Doublet of donner, Thunor, and Thor.


thunder

It thundered continuously.

(impersonal) To produce thunder; to sound, rattle, or roar, as a discharge of atmospheric electricity.

The train thundered along the tracks.

(intransitive) To make a noise like thunder.

Senseless years thunder by / Millions are willing to give their lives for you / Does nothing live on?

1983, “Forbidden Colours”, in David Sylvian (lyrics), Ryuichi Sakamoto (music), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, performed by David Sylvian:

(ergative) To (make something) move very fast (with loud noise).

"Get back to work at once!", he thundered.

(intransitive, transitive) To say (something) with a loud, threatening voice.

Just as it appeared Arsenal had taken the sting out of the tie, Johnson produced a moment of outrageous quality, thundering a bullet of a left foot shot out of the blue and into the top left-hand corner of Wojciech Szczesny's net with the Pole grasping at thin air.

2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1 - 3 Arsenal”, in BBC:

To produce something with incredible power.

en-verb

thunder (third-person singular simple present thunders, present participle thundering, simple past and past participle thundered)

thunders (present singular third-person)
thundering (participle present)
thundered (participle past)
thundered (past)
thunder (infinitive)

thunderer

to say something with a loud, threatening voice

jyristä

transitive: say something with a loud, threatening voice