thud
/θʌd
/noun
A dull, heavy sound, such as that made by an object falling to the ground: he hit the floor with a terrific thud...
- The elevator slammed into the ground with a dull thud, and the doors screeched open.
- He and the coffee table hit the ground with a loud thud and the sound for breaking wood.
- A little later we hear two dull thuds echoing across the valley as one of the Apaches fires its missiles.
Synonyms
thump, clunk, clonk, crash, smash, smack, bang, boom, thunder, wallop;
stomp, stamp, clump, clomp
informal wham, whump
verb (thuds, thudding, thudded) [no object]
1Move, fall, or strike something with a dull, heavy sound: the bullets thudded into the dusty ground (as noun thudding) he heard the hollow thudding of hooves...
- He tumbled down the incline, head over heels amid falling debris, and thudded against something soft.
- We were flying over the land as the pounding of the hooves thudded in our hearts.
- His heavy boots thudded against the pavement of a desolate road as he kept on walking in a semiconscious daze.
Synonyms
thump, clunk, clonk, crash, smash, smack, bang, thunder;
stomp, stamp, clump, clomp
informal wham, whump
1.1 (as adjective thudding) Used to emphasize the clumsiness or awkwardness of something: great thudding conversation-stoppers...
- The tone was set when Sutton rumbled through the back of little Graham Weir in the opening minutes with a thudding tackle which, in fairness, took the ball.
- They are rehearsing the opera in a community hall in Mudchute, a desolate stretch of the Isle of Dogs trapped between the banking towers of Canary Wharf and the thudding aimlessness of deprived estates.
- He maintains with a thudding predictability that success hasn't changed him.
Derivatives
thuddingly
[as submodifier]: rarely has a life-affirming finale seemed more thuddingly sentimental...
- Perhaps troubled by the thought that his approach is too understated, he revisits the theme in the thuddingly titled Song 3.
- For a band so thuddingly mainstream as Coldplay, they do seem to have a good line in sensing public opinion.
- But more often than not, shows that unfurl in real time are thuddingly dull.
Origin
Late Middle English (originally Scots): probably from Old English thyddan 'to thrust, push'; related to thoden 'violent wind'. The noun is recorded first denoting a sudden blast or gust of wind, later the sound of a thunderclap, whence a dull, heavy sound. The verb dates from the early 16th century.