TSUNAMI

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tsunami mean? 

• TSUNAMI (noun)
  The noun TSUNAMI has 1 sense:

1. a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption

  Familiarity information: TSUNAMI used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TSUNAMI (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

a colossal tsunami destroyed the Minoan civilization in minutes

Hypernyms ("tsunami" is a kind of...):

calamity; cataclysm; catastrophe; disaster; tragedy (an event resulting in great loss and misfortune)

moving ridge; wave (one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water))

 Context examples 

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new "tsunami wave" from the sun as it sails through interstellar space.

(Sun sends more 'tsunami waves' to Voyager 1, NASA)

Knowledge of offshore strain accumulation and release processes is critical to understanding shallow-water earthquakes and tsunamis.

(Geoscientists develop technology to improve forecasting of earthquakes, tsunamis, National Science Foundation)

If you live in a coastal area, there is the possibility of a tsunami.

(Earthquakes, Federal Emergency Management Agency)

In Palu, although early reporting blamed most of the estimated 2,000 fatalities on a tsunami, surveys soon showed that soil-liquefaction landslides caused at least as much damage as the ocean waves did.

(NASA Map Reveals a New Landslide Risk Factor, NASA)

The simulations resulting from a sophisticated model the researchers used show that solar tsunamis could be the connection that explains the Sun's remarkably rapid transition from one cycle to the next.

('Terminators' on the sun trigger plasma tsunamis, start of new solar cycles, National Science Foundation)

The evidence includes bits of charcoal, jumbles of rock brought in by a tsunami's backflow, and conspicuously absent sulfur.

(Rocks at asteroid impact site record first day of dinosaur extinction, National Science Foundation)

The sun's shock waves push these particles around like buoys in a tsunami.

(Sun sends more 'tsunami waves' to Voyager 1, NASA)

Geoscientists at the University of South Florida have successfully developed and tested a new high-tech shallow water buoy that can detect the small movements and changes in the Earth's seafloor that may be precursors to deadly natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.

(Geoscientists develop technology to improve forecasting of earthquakes, tsunamis, National Science Foundation)

When the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs slammed into the planet, the impact set wildfires, triggered tsunamis and blasted so much sulfur into the atmosphere that it blocked the sun, which caused the global cooling that ultimately doomed the dinos.

(Rocks at asteroid impact site record first day of dinosaur extinction, National Science Foundation)

In a pair of new papers, scientists paint a picture of how solar cycles suddenly die, potentially causing tsunamis of plasma to race through the sun's interior and trigger the birth of the next sunspot cycle only a few weeks later.

('Terminators' on the sun trigger plasma tsunamis, start of new solar cycles, National Science Foundation)