earthquake

From Middle English erthequake, corresponding to earth +‎ quake. Displaced Old English eorþbeofung (literally “earth shaking”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɜːθkweɪk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɝθkweɪk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)θkweɪk

earthquake (plural earthquakes)

1. A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults. [from 14th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Her alablaster brest she soft did kis, / Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake, / As it an Earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake.

   • 2006 October 6, Declan Walsh, The Guardian:

     Last year's earthquake crushed his house, his livelihood and very nearly his leg, he said, pointing to a plastered limb that refuses to heal.

2. (planetary geology) Such a quake specifically occurring on the planet Earth, as opposed to other celestial bodies. [from 20th c.]
   • 1988, Jürgen Oberst and Yosio Nakamura, “A seismic risk for the lunar base” in The Second Conference on Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century, Vol. 1, p. 231-233, NASA:

     Since the response of some man-made structures to the ground motion near the epicenter is highly dependent on frequency, a significant difference in potential damage to the structures is expected between earthquakes and moonquakes.

   • 2006, Bruce A. Bolt, Earthquakes, Fifth Edition:

     The wave patterns, too, are strikingly different: The secondary (S) waves and surface waves on lunar seismograms are not generally as clearly defined and distinct as are those of earthquakes.

3. (figuratively) A sudden and intense upheaval; a severely disruptive event.
   • 2019 July 11, John Thornhill, “Does tech threaten to rerun the worst of the Industrial Revolution?”, in Financial Times‎:

     As we have seen, economic earthquakes often result in political shockwaves. […] He highlights a correlation between those states with the highest robot density and those states that unexpectedly swung behind Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, namely Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

• moonquake
• seaquake
• starquake

earthquake (third-person singular simple present earthquakes, present participle earthquaking, simple past and past participle earthquaked)

1. (intransitive) To undergo an earthquake.
   • 1993, Gyeorgos C. Hatonn, The Best of Times: The Worst of Times, page 129:

     Watch the Philippines very closely for the next little while. There is rumbling and earthquaking deep within Pinatubo and increased earthquaking within Mayon.

• aftershock
• earthquake engineering
• fault line
• Richter scale
• seismic
• seismograph
• seismologist
• seismology
• tremor
• tsunami

• earthquake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Tectonic hazards/Earthquake on Wikiversity.Wikiversity
• Category:Animations of earthquake impact on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

• heartquake

Borrowed from English earthquake; compare yirdquauk.

earthquake (plural earthquakes)

1. earthquake

   Synonym: yirdquauk