How to Use thrum in a Sentence

thrum

1 of 2 verb
  • The book thrums with a newfound pessimism; Ariely seems to have lost faith in his old parlor tricks.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2023
  • There are no traffic jams, no thrumming HVAC units, no traces of pollution.
    Andrew Lawrence, Popular Mechanics, 6 June 2023
  • The library is now a buzzy and vibrant cultural center thrumming with life.
    Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Cicadas thrummed gaily, fields shimmered with bird and insect life.
    Joyce Carol Oates, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • By the end of the first chorus, though, as her voice rises, she’s suddenly bolstered by a thrumming beat, strings and a bull-rush arrangement that builds to a rush-of-blood-to-the-head sprint.
    Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 7 July 2023
  • Counteracting all that fat is an aji criollo, a thick green sauce of garlic, peppers and herbs that thrums with lime juice and vinegar.
    Gabe Hiatt, Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2023
  • My body, thrumming with stress and adrenaline, began to hum instead with desire.
    Jerrine Tan, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2023
  • But beneath the festive atmosphere thrummed a note of anxiety.
    Vivian Wang, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023
  • The operation’s thrumming heart beats in Building One, where machines, rotating at high speeds, spit out as many as 1,200 rifle cartridges per minute.
    Ben Dooley Emily Rhyne, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2023
  • Compact and thrumming with energy, Zaslav has a distinct New York accent, and speaks in long narratives that always resolve in a salesman-like pitch.
    Clare Malone, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2023
  • But this painting is also something entirely other — springy and thrumming with color shifts.
    Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 4 July 2023
  • By the 1980s, much of downtown was moribund; buildings that once thrummed with commerce were dilapidated and vacant or underused.
    Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times, 20 June 2023
  • After a handful of minor league outings, Bauer debuted to a crowd that pulsated with the thrumming energy expected of games in Japan.
    Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 3 May 2023
  • Despite the challenges facing many small business owners in Queens right now, these local legends—some have been thrumming along for over 20 years—continue to cater to their communities.
    Caroline Shin, Bon Appétit, 13 Oct. 2023
  • The sandworms are seen to consume pretty much anything that rhythmically thrums in their territory, from the spice harvester machines to the Imperial Sardaukar and the brutish Harkonnen troops.
    Popular Science, 6 Mar. 2024
  • Inside, the supercomputer loomed over me, thrumming like a waterfall.
    Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Hataya, a stalwart Morioka kissaten — a midcentury Japanese-style coffee shop — thrummed with business.
    Craig Mod, New York Times, 17 Feb. 2023
  • The New Wave filmmakers discerned, extracted, and developed those aspects of recent American movies that seethed and thrummed with the spirit of youth in order to create their own cinema of actual and manifest youth.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023
  • This is the awful, revelatory idea thrumming at the heart of Godzilla, what gives these films their curious power, even at a time when anxieties about nuclear disasters (still a genuine danger) have been surpassed.
    Asher Elbein, Scientific American, 3 Nov. 2023
  • My competence in the work itself, utilizing machines, tools, and my own hands, never fails to quiet some thrumming tension in my core, a need to be an instrument for fulfilling responsibilities.
    M. R. O’Connor, The New Yorker, 29 Feb. 2024
  • Slavery was upheld in our original Constitution, as a propitiation between Southern states—where the economy thrummed on the backs of human chattel—and the states that had either no use for slavery or were considering its abolition.
    Rich Logis, The New Republic, 19 Apr. 2023
  • Ultimately, the story that erupts from this intensely personal and domestic scenario is thrumming with wider cultural resonances.
    Cate Blanchett, Rolling Stone, 26 Feb. 2024
  • The book thrums with a newfound pessimism; Ariely seems to have lost faith in his old parlor tricks.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2023
  • There are no traffic jams, no thrumming HVAC units, no traces of pollution.
    Andrew Lawrence, Popular Mechanics, 6 June 2023
  • The library is now a buzzy and vibrant cultural center thrumming with life.
    Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Cicadas thrummed gaily, fields shimmered with bird and insect life.
    Joyce Carol Oates, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • By the end of the first chorus, though, as her voice rises, she’s suddenly bolstered by a thrumming beat, strings and a bull-rush arrangement that builds to a rush-of-blood-to-the-head sprint.
    Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 7 July 2023
  • Counteracting all that fat is an aji criollo, a thick green sauce of garlic, peppers and herbs that thrums with lime juice and vinegar.
    Gabe Hiatt, Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2023
  • My body, thrumming with stress and adrenaline, began to hum instead with desire.
    Jerrine Tan, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2023
  • But beneath the festive atmosphere thrummed a note of anxiety.
    Vivian Wang, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023
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thrum

2 of 2 noun
  • Sense the gentle thrum of panic in your chest, and hear the patter of the drill in the street beyond.
    Cora Frazier, The New Yorker, 16 Jan. 2023
  • Hershey is so quiet that any noise is jarring — the rustling of branches, the thrum of a truck.
    New York Times, 28 Sep. 2021
  • Want to fall asleep to the thrum of ocean waves, and wake up to aqua-water-meets-blue-sky Caribbean views?
    Pamela Wright, BostonGlobe.com, 12 Jan. 2023
  • Its flavors are a singular swirl: porky, oniony and minty, with a low thrum of chile heat.
    Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2022
  • Now just the thrum of traffic, seeping through an open window, filled the silence.
    Declan Walsh, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2021
  • Classic rock could be heard playing on the radio, over the thrum of machinery.
    Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2023
  • On a recent Thursday, the room was quiet but for the thrum of a living room television.
    Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 May 2021
  • While not a romance at all, the film thrums with how much Sophie longs for the young father that, it’s implied, hasn’t been present in her life for decades.
    Vulture, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Though just half an hour from the urban thrum of Dublin, this peninsula jutting into the Irish Sea feels a world away.
    Matthew Kronsberg, WSJ, 26 Nov. 2022
  • The thrum of Francine’s swirling resentment, worry, and lust pierces the quiet that Jérôme’s murder was supposed to bring.
    Lili Owen Rowlands, The New Yorker, 29 Dec. 2022
  • Beating drums, berserkers roaring, the howling of wolves, the deep guttural thrum of chanting voices and the clank of steel.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 25 Apr. 2022
  • Few venues are contained by four walls; Instead, people overflow onto the streets to the thrum of live music.
    Karen I. Chen, Travel + Leisure, 18 Feb. 2023
  • The track boasts a dusty drum groove and an unnerving loop of queasy bell-like synths that chime off-kilter over the occasional thrum of a bass synth.
    Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 4 Mar. 2022
  • The roar of the growing burn was overlaid with the thrum of air tankers and helicopters as firefighting response began to gear up.
    John Riha, Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2023
  • Hundreds of thousands have fled to the south, leaving a silence broken only by the pop of machine-gun fire and the heavy thrum of Israeli tanks.
    Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2023
  • Dining on the early side or snaring one of the four tables out front are the only alternatives to the clamor as the night thrums on.
    Tom Sietsema, Washington Post, 9 June 2023
  • The decor is deliberately unstudied, paired with the low thrum of hip-hop.
    Sophie Dening, Condé Nast Traveler, 27 Oct. 2021
  • But Zhao's imprint is also hard to miss in the movie's steady thrum of melancholy and its deeper, odder character arcs.
    Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 26 Oct. 2021
  • On the highway, the Fulvia cruised happily at 80 mph, and the narrow-angle four hummed a happy thrum, snarled through the intake, and rumbled out the exhaust.
    Tony Quiroga, Car and Driver, 22 May 2022
  • The thrum of a lawnmower’s engine was all that disturbed the tranquility of nature.
    Darnell Mayberry | , cleveland, 16 Sep. 2023
  • By now, America’s obsession with food allergies is a kind of white noise, a steady thrum at the edge of consciousness.
    Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2023
  • The thrum of helicopter rotors woke neighbors, and people spilled out of their houses to see what was happening.
    Washington Post, 10 Feb. 2022
  • Shot at Brookfield Place in Manhattan, the image shows five office workers wearing versions of the same business-blue shirt, frozen in the thrum of lunch hour.
    Christy Harmon Stella Bugbee, New York Times, 15 Dec. 2022
  • My side-eye at their neo-pioneer lifestyle is accompanied by a thrum of envy for the freedom of their life (Who works?
    Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • Throughout the series, the score lends a constant thrum of tension to scenes of pretty people lounging underneath palm trees.
    Meredith Blake Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2021
  • The ride is firm but not punishing and, thanks to active sound cancellation, the thrum of the GT-R's engine doesn't punish your ear drums when cruising on the highway.
    Drew Dorian, Car and Driver, 15 Dec. 2022
  • Vitality thrums through his stories even in the shadows of despair.
    Ron Charles, Washington Post, 3 Aug. 2023
  • Its cinematography captures the kinetic thrill of being airborne, the thrust of the engines, the thrum of the drive against gravity.
    Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 15 June 2021
  • And having the orchestra onstage will allow an audience to really feel the thrum of the music.
    Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press, 19 Feb. 2022
  • In Detroit, the nocturnal thrum of techno underlies the chanting.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 9 June 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thrum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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