thudding

Pluralthuddings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A dull, heavy banging sound produced by a forceful impact.

   Like the muffled boom a bass drum makes when it is struck.

   A rhythmic thudding came from the basement as the old machine kept working.

   The thudding of distant artillery kept the soldiers awake all night.

   Similarthumping, pounding, banging, drumming, booming

   Note

   Noise words in -ing like to travel in lists. Brad Steiger's Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places (2003) describes a basement of "heavy footsteps, thuddings, and scrapings." Used without a count, it names an ongoing run of blows, as in the thudding of artillery. Made plural, thuddings, it counts separate bouts of the sound. Where one single impact is meant, thud is the shorter word.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of thud.

   The bass was thudding through the walls of the apartment next door.

   He could feel his pulse thudding in his temples after the sprint.

   Note

   The -ing form of a verb that takes no object: hearts, fists and bass lines thud, but nothing is thudded. It builds progressives (was thudding through the walls) and modifies nouns (thudding footsteps). As a gerund it keeps its verbal habits, as in thudding against the door kept him awake. By contrast, the noun for the sound behaves like any noun, taking articles and adjectives: a heavy thudding.

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