Stormed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Moved quickly and with strong emotion, often in anger ; launched a sudden and intense attack on a place or enemy
2. Went with rapid, forceful motion expressing fury or determination ; made an aggressive and swift assault on a target
3. Advanced energetically and impatiently, sometimes in protest ; conducted an abrupt and forceful onslaught against an opponent or position

Etymology: The "storm" in "stormed" started out as weather. Old English "storm" meant a tempest, but it also carried the sense of an attack and a rush or onrush, and that military sense has deep roots in the same Germanic stock that gave German "Sturm" its meaning of both gale and assault. The wind-and-rain sense is the older core, and the attack sense grew alongside it. The verb has its own branch. Middle English "stormen" meant "of the wind: to blow violently; to cause to roll or toss," built from the noun plus the verb-forming ending "-en." A separate Old English verb, "styrman," meant to rage, make a great noise, or shout, and it fed into a Middle English verb "sturmen" meaning to attack someone with great force. That second word did not survive into modern English, but its meaning of violent assault was carried forward by the surviving verb. Today's sense of charging in with anger, or of seizing a place by sudden violent assault, comes straight from that medieval military idea. The gale and the siege were once the same word's business.

Synonyms: raged, tempested, assaulted, attacked, blustered

Antonyms: calmed, soothed, settled, quieted, pacified