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What is the difference between sudden and lightning?

sudden | lightning |

As adjectives the difference between sudden and lightning

is that sudden is happening quickly and with little or no warning, snell while lightning is extremely fast or sudden.

As nouns the difference between sudden and lightning

is that sudden is (obsolete) an unexpected occurrence; a surprise while lightning is a flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.

As a adverb sudden

is (poetic) suddenly.

As a verb lightning is

(impersonal|childish|or|nonstandard) to produce lightning.

sudden

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Happening quickly and with little or no warning.
  • *, chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • (obsolete) Hastily prepared or employed; quick; rapid.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Never was such a sudden scholar made.
  • * Milton
  • the apples of Asphaltis, appearing goodly to the sudden eye
  • (obsolete) Hasty; violent; rash; precipitate.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden

    Antonyms

    * gradual * unsudden

    Derived terms

    * all of a sudden * sudden death * suddenly * suddenness * suddenwoven

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (poetic) Suddenly.
  • * Milton
  • Herbs of every leaf that sudden flowered.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An unexpected occurrence; a surprise.
  • Derived terms

    * all of a sudden * all of the sudden * of a sudden

    Statistics

    *

    lightning

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • A flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.
  • Although we did not see the lightning , we did hear the thunder.
  • * 1901 , E. L. Morris, The Child's Eden , page 16:
  • It was the thought of hot July and August days, when the clouds piled up like woolly mountains, and lightnings streaked the sky.
  • A discharge of this kind.
  • The lightning was hot enough to melt the sand.
    That tree was hit by lightning .
  • * 1881 , Daniel Pierce Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys , page 281:
  • The rain at length ceased; and the lightnings , as they played along the black parapet of clouds, that lay piled in the east, shone with less dazzling fierceness,
  • (figuratively) Anything that moves very fast.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), , chapter V:
  • Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.
  • The act of making bright, or the state of being made bright; enlightenment; brightening, as of the mental powers.
  • (Webster 1913)

    Quotations

    * 2008 , Kathy Clark, Stand By Your Man , page 280: *: Manny drove a few miles per hour under the speed limit, entranced by the awesome display of lightning streaking out of the clouds toward earth.

    Derived terms

    * ball lightning * Jewish lightning * greased lightning * lightning bug * lightning bolt * lightning conductor * lightning detector * lightning in a bottle * lightning rod * sheet lightning * upward lightning

    Coordinate terms

    * thunderbolt

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Extremely fast or sudden.
  • Moving at the speed of lightning.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (impersonal, childish, or, nonstandard) To produce lightning.
  • * 1916 , Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy
  • Or if it thundered and lightninged , Aunt Frances always dropped everything she might be doing and held Elizabeth Ann tightly in her arms until it was all over.
  • * 1968 , Dan Greenburg, Chewsday: a sex novel
  • The next day, though it is not only raining but thundering and lightninging as well, antiquing is seen by three-fourths of those present as a lesser evil than free play.
  • * 1987 , Tricia Springstubb, Eunice Gottlieb and the unwhitewashed truth about life
  • "Hey!" yelled Reggie, pulling her back. "Get in here! It's lightninging . I don't want a charcoal-broiled friend!"
  • * 1988 , Carlo Collodi, Roberto Innocenti, The adventures of Pinocchio
  • I don't know, Father, but believe me, it has been a horrible night — one that I'll never forget. It thundered and lightninged , and I was very hungry.

    Usage notes

    * bolt, flash, strike are some of the words used to count lightning. * The standard, but rare, verb for "lightning occurs" is lighten, used only in the impersonal form "it lightens", or as "it’s lightening".