fulminate

/ˌfʊlməˈneɪt/

Other forms: fulminated; fulminating; fulminates

Watch a bomb fulminate or explode and hope you're under safe cover. Have your parents fulminate or blow up at you for coming home past curfew and hope you're not grounded for too long.

The word fulminate is made up of the Latin root fulmen meaning "lightning flash." Look up at the sky during a violent thunderstorm and chances are you'll catch thunder and lightning fulminate or explode loudly and violently overhead. But you needn't look to the sky alone for this kind of intensity. If you find yourself in a room with passionate Republicans and Democrats debating, you might see them fulminate or severely rail against each other's beliefs.

Definitions of fulminate

1. verb

   cause to explode violently and with loud noise
   type of:

   blow up, detonate, explode, set off

   cause to burst with a violent release of energy
2. verb

   come on suddenly and intensely
   “the disease fulminated”

   type of:

   appear, come along

   come into being or existence, or appear on the scene
3. verb

   criticize severely
   “He fulminated against the Republicans' plan to cut Medicare”

   synonyms: rail

   type of:

   denounce

   speak out against
4. noun

   a salt or ester of fulminic acid
   types:

   fulminate of mercury, fulminating mercury, mercury fulminate

   a fulminate that when dry explodes violently if struck or heated; used in detonators and blasting caps and percussion caps

   type of:

   salt

   a compound formed by replacing hydrogen in an acid by a metal (or a radical that acts like a metal)