Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, subject to, or caused by an earthquake or earth vibration.
  • adjective Earthshaking.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or of the nature of an earthquake; relating to or connected with an earthquake, or with earthquakes in general.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to an earthquake; caused by an earthquake.
  • adjective the point upon the earth's surface vertically over the center of effort or focal point whence the earthquake's impulse proceeds, or the vertical line connecting these two points.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Related to, or caused by an earthquake or other vibration of the Earth.
  • adjective figuratively Of very large, or widespread effect.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective subject to or caused by an earthquake or earth vibration

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Based on Ancient Greek σεισμός (seismos, "shaking, earthquake") + -ic.

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Examples

Comments

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  • heard these days more often than not in the vicinity of orgasm

    June 5, 2009

  • I still read it more often in relation to plate tectonics. Perhaps I'm reading the wrong matter.

    June 5, 2009

  • 'heard', not 'read', I said (leave it to TV to fossilize terms into the incorrect domain).

    though I suspect there's a bit of kooky femlit out there mentioning 'mother earth's seismic orgasm'

    June 5, 2009