What does "thunderstick" mean?

A gun or cannon, especially a rifle, as seen from the imagined perspective of an uncivilized person or an animal.

What is a synonym for "thunderstick"?

Common synonyms include: fire stick, fire-stick.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A gun or cannon, especially a rifle, as seen from the imagined perspective of an uncivilized person or an animal.
"The man pointed his thunderstick at the buffalo, and with a great noise and fire, the buffalo fell down dead."
2
A narrow plastic balloon that is used as a promotional noise maker by hitting one against another.
"Called “James Tenney and Milton Babbitt : American Iconoclasts,” the mini-festival begins on Saturday with a work by Mr. Tenney, who died in 2006, on a program including pieces by Larry Polansky, Michael Byron and Henry Cowell (the 1925 “Ensemble” for string quartet and thundersticks). Mr. Babbitt is honored on Sunday with a program that includes, among other works, a premiere by Christopher Buchenholz."

"The man pointed his thunderstick at the buffalo, and with a great noise and fire, the buffalo fell down dead."

From thunder + stick. Originally used by or ascribed to members of non-European cultures or anthropomorphized animals describing firearms.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.