TIDAL WAVE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Tidal wave

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/tˈaɪdəl weɪv/ Listen

noun

Tidal wave n.

An unusually high wave from the sea, sometimes reaching far inland and causing great destruction, and usually caused by some event, such as an earthquake, far from the shore. In Japan, such a wave is called a tsunami.

(fig.) An unusually large quantity of items or events requiring attention and causing strain on the capacity to handle them; as, a tidal wave of orders for a new product; a tidal wave of tourists.

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Etymology of 'Tidal wave'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tidal wave" Quotes from Famous Books

... Whole towns were destroyed in both islands; but even more striking than the loss of human life and property is the fact, now satisfactorily established, that the discharge of ashes was so great as to cause a series of extraordinarily brilliant sunsets all over the world, while the force of the tidal wave was such as to affect the level of the water in the river Thames. In travelling from Batavia to Singapore, I was fortunate enough to meet with an officer in the employ of the Netherlands India Steamship ...

— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... a broad thumb on his plastic mind without his conscious knowledge. Canada with her young, red-blooded vigour swept into him like a tidal wave of open sea into a sluggish, marshy creek. Canada thrust her vastness and her limitless potentialities at him with a careless hand, as though to say: "Here's opportunity for the taking." Canada taught him in ten days what at home he would never have learnt ...

— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... knowing its cause hopeless, but determined to sell life as dearly as possible. But the 'cello, too, went down and for a bar or two the flutes and oboes sang a paean of victory. Too soon. Upon them, like a tidal wave, swept down a hurricane of brasses and shook the ...

— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... human anguish which grew in agonized intensity, gathering volume far and near until it became like the death-cry of a city. Unconsciously she was joining in it—that involuntary "oh-h," that crescendo tidal wave of sound sweeping upward from despairing humanity. Then this mighty and bitter cry seemed to become articulate in the word "God." With an instinct swift, inevitable, and irresistible as the power that had shaken the city, the thought of God as the only other power able ...

— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... they forecast dancing in the Gym. The spring days will be either cloudy, partly cloudy, or clear. It will rain dogs and cats or hail taxicabs, although we may have snow, a tornado, a cyclone, a blizzard, a squall, a typhoon, a tidal wave, or a ...

— The 1926 Tatler • Various

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