Citations:tidal wave

Noun: a crest of ocean water resulting from tidal forces

 * Mid 1800s &mdash; They occur only within the limits of the tidal waves; and as the rivulet slowly trickles down, the surf must supply the polishing power of the cataracts in the great rivers. In like manner, the rise and fall of the tide probably answer to the periodical inundations; and thus the same effects are produced under apparently different but really similar circumstances. &mdash; Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, Chapter 1
 * 1841 &mdash; In changing moon, in tidal wave, / Glows the feud of Want and Have. &mdash; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation

Noun: a large, sudden, and disastrous wave of water

 * 1872 &mdash; The earthquakes caused some loss of human life, and a prodigious tidal wave swept inland, carrying every thing before it and drowning a number of natives. &mdash; Mark Twain, Roughing it, Chapter 75
 * 1896 &mdash; Both these were on the same day swept by a tidal wave, which was not felt in any other bay or island of the group. &mdash; Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, Part 1, Chapter 12
 * 1896 &mdash; Hurricanes and tidal waves over-leap these humble obstacles; Oceanus remembers his strength, and, where houses stood and palms flourished, shakes his white beard again over the barren coral. &mdash; Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, Part 2, Chapter 2
 * 1907 &mdash; A tidal wave of water poured over the back of the tender and down upon me. I was soaked to the skin, as wet as if I had fallen overboard. &mdash; Jack London, The Road
 * 1908 &mdash; Once they began to move the flood waters must have come down the valleys in tidal waves, the Maluka explained. "The Cullen we've just left will probably be a roaring torrent by now." &mdash; Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn, We of the Never-Never, Chapter 3

Noun (figurative): a sudden and powerful surge

 * 1880 &mdash; I cannot describe the emotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I saw the moon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without exposing more than two feet four inches of her upper rim above it; I was secure, then. &mdash; Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, Chapter 43
 * 1889 &mdash; "At that time," he went on, "a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life." &mdash; Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno, Chapter 19
 * 1900 &mdash; It also brings us to the trouble of 'Scruff' Mackenzie, which occurred in the old days, before the country was stampeded and staked by a tidal-wave of the che-cha-quas, and when the Klondike's only claim to notice was its salmon fisheries. &mdash; Jack London, The Son of the Wolf
 * 1903 &mdash; Such knowledge floods the soul unseen with a soundless tidal wave of deepening thought. "Knowledge is power." &mdash; Helen Keller, The Story of My Life, Chapter 20
 * 1903 &mdash; He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move. &mdash; Jack London, Call of the Wild, Chapter 3
 * 1906 &mdash; For all its plea and passion and warmth, it wells upward like a great, cold tidal wave, irresistible, inexorable, ingulfing present-day society level by level. &mdash; Jack London, The War Of The Classes

Unsorted quotations

 * 1909 &mdash; Ordinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the continent like a tidal wave, whose roar and boom and thunder are made up of admiration, delight and applause, a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the authorship. &mdash; Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead?, Chapter 9
 * 1911 &mdash; They are the cyclones and tornadoes, lightning flashes and cloud-bursts, tide-rips and tidal waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies, earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rock-ribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard the largest crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to death&mdash;and these insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right and quite a superior being. &mdash; Jack London, The Cruise of the Snark, Chapter 1
 * 1911 &mdash; He had surely reached the limit of disaster. Barring earthquake or tidal-wave, the worst had already befallen him. &mdash; Jack London, Adventure, Chapter 3
 * 1914 &mdash; "Lost on the West Coast afterwards&mdash;went ashore in that big earthquake and tidal wave. &mdash; Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter 9
 * 1914 &mdash; The wonders of the deep were without significance to him. Tornadoes, hurricanes, waterspouts, and tidal waves were so many obstacles to the way of a ship on the sea and of a master on the bridge&mdash;they were that to him, and nothing more. &mdash; Jack London, The Strength of the Strong
 * 1919 &mdash; He was still reeling from the spiritual impact with this female tidal wave when he became aware, as one who, coming out of a swoon, hears voices faintly, that he was being addressed by Miss Leonard. &mdash; P G Wodehouse, Uneasy Money, Chapter 6
 * 1920 &mdash; But much may happen in twenty years; coast erosion and tidal waves and things like that. &mdash; A. A. Milne, If I May, Chapter 3
 * 1932 &mdash; Anyway, when the last car passes, moving fast now, the world rushes down on him like a flood, a tidal wave. It is too huge and fast for distance and time; hence no path to be retraced, leading the mule for a good way before he remembers to get on it and ride. &mdash; William Faulkner, Light in August
 * 1932 &mdash; I tell you, they were not men after spoils and glory; they were boys riding the sheer tremendous tidal wave of desperate living. &mdash; William Faulkner, Light in August
 * 1935 &mdash; In a big public school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him. &mdash; P G Wodehouse, Mike and Psmith, Chapter 7
 * 1949 &mdash; Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armor-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an airplane as independent of its base as a sailing ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometers away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by topping the heat at the earth's center. &mdash; George Orwell, 1984
 * 1949 &mdash; To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave. &mdash; George Orwell, 1984
 * 1953 &mdash; They leapt into the air and clutched the brass pole as if it were the last vantage point above a tidal wave passing below, and then the brass pole, to their dismay, slid them down into darkness, into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life! &mdash; Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
 * 1953 &mdash; He stepped from the river. The land rushed at him, a tidal wave. &mdash; Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
 * 1965 &mdash; The dark passions of the tides, the shriek of a tidal wave, the avalanching break of surf upon a shoal ... an unknown glory calling for him endlessly from the dark offing ... &mdash; Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, 1963. As translated by John Nathan
 * 1966 &mdash; They had already heard the warnings and were waiting for the thing to hit. A tidal wave was a sight worth waiting up for. &mdash; Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels
 * 1970 &mdash; This was the sudden tidal wave of hatred and vengeful fury that Mitya, as if in anticipation, had described to Alyosha when they had met in the summer house and he had told his young brother that he might kill their father. &mdash; Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880. As translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew
 * → compare other translations...
 * 1972-1974 &mdash; A cyclone paused somewhere miles out to sea, miles up in the atmosphere, its vast hesitation raising a draught of tidal waves, wavering first towards one side of the island then over the mountains to the other, darkening the thousand up-turned mirrors of the rice paddies and finally taking off again with a sweep that shed, monstrous cosmic peacock, gross paillettes of hail, a dross of battering rain, and all the smashed flying detritus of uprooted trees, tin roofs and dead beasts caught up in it. &mdash; Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist
 * 1973 &mdash; "I realized," said Trout, "that God wasn't any conservationist, so for anybody else to be one was sacrilegious and a waste of time. You ever see one of His volcanoes or tornadoes or tidal waves? &mdash; Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
 * 1976 &mdash; As the author sees it, the Earth is God's pinball machine and each quake, tidal wave, flash flood and volcanic eruption is the result of a TILT that occurs when God, cheating, tries to win free games. &mdash; Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
 * 1978 &mdash; Then I went home and sat naked in the warmish rain on Minn's bridge and watched the glossy water running into the deep enclosure. Even on a calm day it runs in and out like a tidal wave. &mdash; Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
 * 1979 &mdash; All around the world city streets exploded with people, cars skidded into each other as the noise fell on them and then rolled off like a tidal wave over hills and valleys, deserts and oceans, seeming to flatten everything it hit. &mdash; Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 3
 * 1980 &mdash; The environmentalist lobby do know what's going to hit it, and they claim that the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, irreparable damage to the atmosphere and all the usual things that environmentalists usually go on about. &mdash; Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Chapter 21
 * 1982 &mdash; As I moved backwards she followed me through the water, her sagging breasts pushing a tidal wave in front of her. &mdash; Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
 * 1983 &mdash; Like a tidal wave, almost imperceptible at first, it gradually built up strength till it submerged everything in its path. &mdash; Michael Ende, The Neverending Story, 1979. As translated by Ralph Manheim
 * 1985 &mdash; This was a planet he had seen completely destroyed, seen with his own two eyes or rather, blinded as he had been by the hellish disruption of air and light, felt with his own two feet as the ground had started to pound at him like a hammer, bucking, roaring, gripped by tidal waves of energy pouring out of the loathsome yellow Vogon ships. &mdash; Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish by Douglas Adams, Chapter 5
 * 1985 &mdash; It is safe to say that if it were observed, a tidal wave would be unleashed in biology, wreaking havoc with all sorts of fundamental tenets of the science. &mdash; Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
 * 1985 &mdash; The map was covered with red and blue lines like tidal waves, showing offensives advancing from Russia and France toward Berlin, where they met. &mdash; Harry Mulisch, The Assault, 1982. As translated by Claire Nicolas
 * 1985 &mdash; And now, as he stood there, a gray mountain rose up, a tidal wave that broke all about him. &mdash; Harry Mulisch, The Assault, 1982. As translated by Claire Nicolas
 * 1986 &mdash; We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different"— whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem— anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. &mdash; Elie Wiesel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Lecture (December 11)
 * 1988 &mdash; When it fell forward it crashed like a tidal wave, ran forward and threw itself, enraged, against the short wall of the cliff. &mdash; Douglas Adams, Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
 * 1988 &mdash; I, in my wickedness, sometimes imagine the coming of a great wave, a high wall of foaming water roaring across the desert, a liquid catastrophe full of snapping boats and drowning arms, a tidal wave that would reduce these vain sandcastles to the nothingness, to the grains from which they came. But there are no waves here. &mdash; Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
 * 1989 &mdash; In the Telluric Navel you place the most powerful valve, which enables you to foresee rain and drought, to release hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes, to split continents, sink islands (no doubt Atlantis disappeared in some such reckless experiment), raise mountain chains ... You realize the atomic bomb is nothing in comparison? &mdash; Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, 1988. As translated by William Weaver
 * 1991 &mdash; Aïda asked pleasantly, "Do you want to be an author?" Swept by a tidal wave of happiness rarely experienced by human beings, Kamal answered, "Perhaps." &mdash; Naguib Mahfouz, Palace of Desire, 1957. As translated by William Maynard Hutchins
 * 1991 &mdash; Flood, drought, famine, hurricane, tornado, tidal wave, avalanche - tea visitors, daily mail. &mdash; Richard Powers, Gold Bug Variations
 * 1994 &mdash; The cantilevered L-shaped modern houses with their "Kitchens of Tomorrow" perched on the slopes overlooking the city would crumble like so much litter – all to be washed away by a tsunami six hours later. &mdash; Douglas Coupland, Life After God
 * 1995 &mdash; "The Severn bore," I said reflexively, employing the local name for a tidal wave on the River Severn, but meaning something quite other. "That's right. Runs right past the house." &mdash; Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island
 * 1995 &mdash; And detonating an H-bomb in the Pacific so as to cause a tidal wave to destroy Carmel would be ruled out because an attack mounted on that jewel of a city would be likely to enrage Californians to a too-risky degree. &mdash; Douglas Hofstadter, Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies
 * 1996 &mdash; A drip had been attached to her arm. The curve of her belly under the blanket was like a tidal wave. &mdash; Harry Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven, Chapter 26, 1992. As translated by Paul Vincent
 * 1997 &mdash; A second later, my fear was swamped by a sudden tidal wave of disgust. &mdash; Alex Garland, The Beach
 * 1997 &mdash; Fat lot of good it'll do us if we all drown in a tidal wave, I reflect, but refrain from sharing this consideration with the others. &mdash; Pamela Petro, Travels in an Old Tongue
 * 1999 &mdash; To his discriminating Wisconsinan eye it does not appear to have been built so much as swept up on the hillside by a tidal wave. &mdash; Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
 * 2001 &mdash; Erragon or Idarolan would be here soon enough to explain how bad this tsunami-tidal wave-wall of water phenomenon might be. &mdash; Anne McCaffrey, The Skies of Pern
 * 2001 &mdash; The idea of a gradual influence of incoming agriculturalists had been replaced in the collective psyche by the image of an unstoppable tidal wave of land-grabbing farmers that swept away everyone and everything in its path. &mdash; Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve
 * 2002 &mdash; Then the mountains themselves started to go. Entire hillsides pulled loose in great swatches the size of ski runs, and tidal waves of mud and thousands and thousands of floodwashed logs crashed down the slopes. &mdash; James O'Reilly & Larry Habegger, Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories
 * 2003 &mdash; Memory returned to her like a tidal wave and she had to stay on her feet or else drown. &mdash; Monica Ali, Brick Lane
 * 2003 &mdash; But this is no stream, folks. This will be a tidal wave that can swamp our democracy. &mdash; Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country, Chapter 3
 * 2003 &mdash; As far as we know, however, America and Alaska (the remnant of the lost continent of Beringia) had no further significant Asian genetic input from the time of the LGM until the time of Leif Eriksson and the human tidal-wave that followed Columbus and his `discovery' of the New World. Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa
 * 2003 &mdash; But the waves start tumbling in, tidal waves of horror on the back of this beautiful dream. &mdash; D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little
 * 2004 &mdash; It was the first clear evidence for a missing link between apes and humans in Africa, and it set off a tidal wave of human-origins research that was to culminate a few decades later in universal acceptance for the African origin of humanity. &mdash; Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey
 * 2003 &mdash; But the waves start tumbling in, tidal waves of horror on the back of this beautiful dream. &mdash; D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little
 * 2004 &mdash; It was the first clear evidence for a missing link between apes and humans in Africa, and it set off a tidal wave of human-origins research that was to culminate a few decades later in universal acceptance for the African origin of humanity. &mdash; Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey

Additional information: additional quotations

 * The Atlantic tidal wave arrives after approximately a day in the English Channel area of the European coast and needs another day to go around the British islands in order to be effective in the North Sea.
 * - 2003: Tide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#Types_of_tides (accessed 2 January, 2005)
 * A tidal wave is a crest of water that moves around the earth with the tide.
 * - 2002?: Tides. Sir Francis Drake High School.  http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/stuwork/rockwater/wavetide/tides.html (accessed 2 January, 2005)


 * Currents on this coast are greatly affected by the prevailing winds, and a tidal wave higher than that ordinarily produced by the moon is sent up the whole shore of Uruguay before a southwest gale, or lowered by a northeaster, as may happen. One of these waves having just receded before the northeast wind which brought [Slocum's sloop] the Spray in left the tide now at low ebb, with oyster-rocks laid bare for some distance along the shore.
 * - 1899: Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone around the World. Internet: Project Gutenberg, 2004


 * A Belfast couple who were caught up in a huge tidal wave in Thailand have said they are lucky to be alive.
 * - 2004: NI couple caught in tidal wave. BBC NEWS.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4125863.stm (accessed 3 January, 2005)
 * But governments insisted they did not know the true nature of the threat because there was no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean — an area where they are rare — and they can’t afford to buy sophisticated equipment to build one.
 * - 2004: Scientists fault warning efforts on tidal waves. MSNBC (From a special report: Asia's Deadly Tsunami).  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6756409/ (accessed 3 January, 2005)
 * Tsunamis are tidal waves formed by underwater earthquakes or, much less frequently, by volcanic eruptions - meteor impacts - or underwater landslides. They that can exceed 400 miles per hours in the deep ocean.
 * - 2002?: Tsunamis - Tidal Waves - Flooding. Ellie Crystal's Metaphysical and Science Website.  http://www.crystalinks.com/tsunami.html (accessed 3 January, 2005)
 * They leapt into the air and clutched the brass pole as if it were the last vantage point above a tidal wave passing below, and then the brass pole, to their dismay, slid them down into darkness, into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life!
 * - 1953: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
 * [A] severe earthquake was felt ... a second severe quake was felt ... a terrible roaring sound was heard followed almost immediately by a very heavy blow against the side of the building, and about 3 inches of water appeared ... broadcast a priority message stating that we had been struck by a tidal wave and might have to abandon the station ...
 * - 1946: Memorandum kept by Chief Radio Electrician Hoban B. Sanford, U.S. Coast Guard. SEMper PARatus PACarea.  http://www.semparpac.org/ScotchCap.pdf (accessed 7 January, 2005)
 * The popular inclinations resemble a tidal wave; if the current once commences in your favour, it will go on of its own force to the end.
 * - 1877: William Carew Hazilitt in Essays of Michel de Montaigne, by Charles Cotton, edited by William Carew Hazilitt, Letter XIV. Internet: Project Gutenberg, 2004


 * The railroad became clogged with freight, a tidal wave of men broke over the town.
 * - 1922: Rex Ellingwood Beach, Flowing Gold. Internet: Project Gutenberg, 2004.

Additional information: BNC
Summary of BNC search results

The British National Corpus contains 87 usages of tidal wave'. Of a random sample of 50:
 * none used the term in the strict oceanographic sense
 * eight referred to the literal sense of a surge in the tide (see below)
 * a few referred to floods or in one case "a tidal wave of powder snow"
 * a few were fragments (tidal wave alone or tidal wave disaster)
 * two asserted that tidal wave and tsunami are synonymous
 * one may have used the oceanographic sense figuratively (!): But will John Major and the Government go down with the sun-Saturn boat or be swept away by the sun-Pluto tidal wave on the 14th? (from Today. London: News Group Newspapers Ltd, 1992 BNC reference CEK)
 * the rest (dozens) were various figurative senses (a tidal wave of crime; swept over her like a tidal wave etc.)

Here are a few of the "surge in the tide" examples. These imply specifically that a tidal wave can be driven by the wind:
 * The Vets were not evacuated when the hurricane struck and Hemingway reports on the wind and the tidal wave that killed hundreds of them. (BNC reference CG3: Creative writing. A practical guide. Casterton, Julia. Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1992)
 * A cyclone and tidal wave in Bangladesh leave 10,000 dead. (BNC Reference HH3: New Internationalist. u.p., n.d)

These mention seismic or volcanic causes:
 * This tidal wave is a product of the combined efforts of the jostling of the crustal plates and the behaviour of the deep Ocean through which the resulting shock waves are transmitted: a small nudge in southern Chile can set up a wave that streaks across the entire Pacific in a matter of hours, with unimaginably enormous force. (BNC reference CJD: The Pacific. Winchester, Simon. London: Arrow Books Ltd, 1992)
 * The dying ripples of its massive tidal wave lapped up the English Channel, and the volcanic debris, wreathing the planet, altered weather and harvest patterns around the world for years afterwards. (BNC reference FNP: Ring of fire. Blair, Lorne. London: Bantam (Corgi), 1988)

These don't mention a cause specifically (though the rest of the account may provide context):
 * We could just see the hazy point where, in that August of 1883, the Dutch administrator of south Sumatra and his family had observed the tidal wave rise inexorably 150 feet right up to the veranda of his residence, pause, and withdraw again, taking some of his flowerpots, half the hillside, and the entire town with its population of some 800 people. (BNC reference FNP: Ring of fire. Blair, Lorne. London: Bantam (Corgi), 1988)
 *  Just over half an hour later, the tidal wave swept up to the Over bridge on the outskirts of Gloucester. (BNC reference K1E: [Central News autocue data.] u.p., n.d.)
 * The 6ft tidal wave flipped the dinghy over and threw the two families into the icy water. (BNC reference K1F: [Central News autocue data.] u.p., n.d)

This one distinguishes a tidal wave from a wind-driven innundation, but doesn't say what a tidal wave might be:
 * Perhaps because of the coral reefs, as now, there had been no tidal wave but the force of the wind had driven the sea inland, thirty feet deep in Belpan City. (BNC reference AMU: Alistair MacLean's golden girl. Gandolfi, Simon. London: Chapmans Publishers Ltd, 1992)