pulse-pounding

English

WOTD – 30 June 2018

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌls ˈpaʊndɪŋ/
Audio (AU) (file)
Hyphenation: pulse pound‧ing

Adjective

pulse-pounding (comparative more pulse-pounding, superlative most pulse-pounding)

That increases the heartbeat rate, especially as a result of excitement or fear.
Synonyms: exciting, terrifying; see also Thesaurus:exciting, Thesaurus:frightening
Antonyms: boring, dull, uninteresting; see also Thesaurus:boring
- 1967 September, “Announcing … The Big Ten [advertisement]”, in Robert G. Forman, editor, The Michigan Alumnus, volume LXXIV, number 1, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, ISSN 0746-2565, OCLC 1002806227, page 30:
  All the thrills, chills and spills of pulse-pounding sport adventure! […] 150,000 words of thrill-packed sports text gives you the pulse-pounding story … how the Big Ten grew from a small-time bunch of upstart Westerners into the nation's mightiest collegiate conference …
- 1991 February 14, Peter Travers, “The Silence of the Lambs [film review]”, in Rolling Stone‎, archived from the original on 5 December 2017:
  The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.
- 2003, W. C. Leadbeater, “Return of the Dread Mutant Killer Glaucoma”, in The Mind-warp Era: A Novel, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 114:
  Suddenly a great, dark shadow passed between the pulse-pounding blasts and my miry form. I saw in astonishment that Nekbael flew along the dim hallway on monstrous bat wings. The demon vampire ripped the pulse-pounding beamer from the hands of the evil pimp.
- 2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 5 March 2018:
  Kevin Williamson’s script justly deserves praise for its cleverness and tactic of treating the audience like it was in on the joke, but ultimately, it was [Wes] Craven’s ability to still deliver a pulse-pounding horror flick and ideal date movie that drove the film so far into the black.

Translations

that increases the heartbeat rate — See also translations at exciting,‎ terrifying