blood and thunder

blood and thunder

1. Violence and aggression.
   • 1920, Hugh Walpole, chapter IV, in The Captives‎:

     […] she could fancy how Thurston was saying to himself: "But what's the good of this? It's blood and thunder we want. The old feller's getting past his work. He must go."

blood and thunder (not comparable)

1. Both melodramatically violent and aggressive.

   blood-and-thunder stories

   • 1899, Helen Cody Wetmore, Zane Grey, Last of the Great Scouts‎:

     Not Buffalo Bill's! He gave us a jack-o'-lantern scare once upon a time, which I don't believe any of us will ever forget. We had never seen that weird species of pumpkin, and Will embroidered a blood-and-thunder narrative.

   • 1904, George Barr McCutcheon, chapter VI, in Beverly of Graustark‎:

     "Your husband is an American. He should be able to keep you well entertained with blood-and-thunder stories," said he.

   • 1922, William T. Hornaday, The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals‎:

     Very sincerely do we wish that at least one of the many romance writers who are so industriously inventing wild-animal blood-and-thunder stories would do more work with his eyes and less with his imagination.

• thud and blunder

blood and thunder

1. Exclamation of shock or frustration.
   • 1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter XI, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volume I, London: […] [William Strahan] for J. Osborn […], →OCLC, page 75:

     Strap following, with the knapsack on his back, chanced to take the other side, and, by a jolt of the carriage, pitched directly upon the stomach of the captain, who bellowed out, in a most dreadful manner, “Blood and thunder! where’s my sword?”

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     "Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!—jump!"—was the next command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes.