Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a general intensifier, excessive, immense; also in phrs., e.g. thundering cats!

1610–20		‘The New Exchange’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) V 4: Here’s dice and boxes, if you please / To play at in and in [...] & if you like such thundering spourt, / Here is my ladyes hole.
1612		J. Taylor Laugh and Be Fat 13: Let not his thundering big-mouth’d words apall thee.
a.1655		T. Adams Works II 420: He goes a thundering pace that you would not think it possible to overtake him .
1660		‘Megg. Spencer’ A Strange and True Conference 4: [S]uch a trick that once a thundring Girl did her impotent husband.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 59: And in they brought a thund’ring Meal.
1686		‘Madam Le Croix’ in Wilson Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 170: Madam, you’ll make a thundering wife.
a.1704		T. Brown Aristænetus’ Epistle in Works (1760) I 219: I was drawing a thundering fish out of the water.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 451: I say again, a very large one, a thundering Pox.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 36: No sooner he the priest did spy, / But up he brought a thundering lie.
1799		Sporting Mag. Sept. XIV 325/2: What cheer my thund’ring bucks? How are ye all?
1806		G. Colman Yngr John Bull II iii: What a thundering passion I’ll be in with her!
1833		P. Pry Reminiscences, Mishaps and Observations 23: Thunderan nagers, says he, (the moment he saw me,) if it isn’t the varmint of a resurrection-man.
1834		N. Ames ‘Morton’ An Old Sailor’s Yarns 173: That thundering cockroach-legged thief.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 63: A thundering Turk – A lushy, sponging, lazy, lop-eared whelp.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 9 Feb. 3/4: Mrs. D. took up Darby as thundering thief.
1851		G. Borrow Lavengro III 401: What a thundering old fool you are.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 101/2: A thundering big brute.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter III 202: ‘Six hundred pounds — it’s a thunderng lot of money’.
1878		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) May 482: We learn [...] that the popular term of high encomium for things animate and inanimate, from a man to a pug-dog or an iced-cream, is ‘too awfully nice,’ or ‘thundering good.’.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co.12 Dec. 79: I’m a thundering fool, that’s what I am.
1885		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 12 Dec. 2/3: She fainted, and a thundering row followed.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 2: What a blind, stupid, thundering idiot a fellow’s been to laugh at the steady working life.
1892		Kipling ‘Cells’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 190: I’m here in the Clink for a thundering drink and blacking the Corporal’s eye.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The Bush Undertaker’ in Roderick (1972) 53: Here y’are, you thundering jumpt-up cuss-o’-God fool!
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 23: An’ you’re a thunderin’ sight better-lookin’!
1911		Eve. World (NY) 9 Jan. 15/3: Where in the thundering Moses [etc].
1914		Joyce ‘Grace’ Dubliners (1956) 158: It is supposed – they say, you know – to take place in the depot where they get these thundering big fellows, omadhauns, you know, to drill.
1926		Boys’ Realm 16 Jan. 267: He would rather have seen Rodway give Jack a thundering good hiding.
1927		Capricorn (Rockhampton, Qld) 27 Oct. 8/4: ‘Thundering dingbats,’ exclaimed the drover.
1936		W. Holtby South Riding (1988) 483: You’ll make a thundering good job of that school.
1944		Hastings & St Leonards Obs. 1 July 7/3: ‘Why not have a real good thundering row?’.
1950		S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 189: There’s no doubt but that you’re a thundering bit of flesh.
1960		‘Hergé’ Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks 5: Ten thousand thundering typhoons!
1976		‘Hergé’ Tintin and the Picaros 9: Thundering typhoons!
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 207: Loading up on aspirin, Al Mackey had at least quelled the thundering headache.
1984		B. Arnold What Kind of Country n.p.: The Minister for Defence [...] in Mullingar on Monday, October 18 [1976], departed from his scripted speech to describe President Ó Dálaigh, with additional expletives, as ‘a thundering disgrace’ [BS].