How to Use foreshock in a Sentence

foreshock

noun
  • Jones says that this most recent set of quakes could be foreshocks for a much larger event.
    — Dean Fioresi, CBS News, 22 Jan. 2026
  • The events of the last couple of weekends might simply be foreshocks.
    — George Schroeder, USA TODAY, 20 Oct. 2019
  • When that happens, the first quake is called a foreshock, and the second temblor is called a main shock.
    — Maya Wei-Haas, National Geographic, 20 Sep. 2019
  • But when an earthquake is followed by a larger one, the first quake becomes known as a foreshock.
    — Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, 7 Aug. 2024
  • As always, there’s a 5% chance of today’s quake being a foreshock to a bigger one.
    — Erik Pedersen, Deadline, 12 Sep. 2024
  • That tremor is now considered a foreshock to the much larger quake Friday night.
    — Carter Evans, CBS News, 6 July 2019
  • The foreshock and flurry of aftershocks occurred at about the same depth, Jones said.
    — Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 5 Apr. 2021
  • For a more salient example, go back to the first foreshock of the great financial debacle.
    — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 3 Aug. 2019
  • There were thousands of foreshocks and aftershocks felt throughout the region.
    — CBS News, 16 July 2019
  • More Quakes These foreshocks aren't noticeable on the surface.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 14 Aug. 2019
  • Neither foreshocks nor aftershocks can be bigger than the mainshock.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 5 Apr. 2024
  • Only two of those — including the one on July 4 — have been a foreshock to a larger quake.
    — latimes.com, 8 July 2019
  • However, that quake would now be considered a foreshock to the Friday night temblor.
    — Jason Green, The Mercury News, 5 July 2019
  • Once all was said and done, the July 5 quake was classified as the main shock, the July 4 quake, a foreshock.
    — Madalyn Amato, Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2021
  • The only possible precursors that stood out were foreshocks, the tiny temblors that can occur before a larger main event.
    — Jenny Howard, National Geographic, 13 Aug. 2019
  • The March 11 earthquake was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days.
    — Fox News, 11 Mar. 2011
  • The patterns seen in the aseismic slip are similar in many ways to the patterns seen in foreshocks—smaller quakes that happen before major temblors.
    — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 20 July 2023
  • Jones said that 5% of the time, an initial earthquake may actually be a foreshock that is preceding a larger earthquake.
    — CBS News, 19 Sep. 2020
  • The second quake is considered the mainshock, while the first was a foreshock, USGS said.
    — Jeanine Santucci, USA Today, 26 June 2026
  • But conventionally, only half of earthquakes have an easily detectable foreshock, while the other half do not.
    — Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, 22 Dec. 2025
  • Also, swarms aren't more likely to be foreshocks, according to Jones, or when a smaller earthquake comes before a larger earthquake.
    — Paris Barraza, USA Today, 12 May 2026
  • Sometimes a foreshock may be identified incorrectly as the mainshock until a larger one occurs after it.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 20 Dec. 2022
  • In lab experiments, foreshocks have been observed leading up to almost all simulated earthquakes.
    — Jenny Howard, National Geographic, 13 Aug. 2019
  • When solar wind storms strike Earth, that solar radiation first crashes into a part of Earth’s magnetic field called the foreshock.
    — Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 25 Nov. 2019
  • However, there have been other major earthquakes with no easily noticeable foreshocks, Jones said.
    — Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, 22 Dec. 2025
  • They are usually preceded by something called an 'aura', a sort of minor foreshock lasting anything up to a couple of minutes before the main event begins.
    — Pat Long, CNN, 1 June 2017
  • Those precursor events were the laboratory equivalent of the seismic waves produced by foreshocks before an earthquake.
    — Quanta Magazine, 19 Sep. 2019
  • Lesser-magnitude quakes have previously been foreshocks to larger-magnitude ones.
    — Chad De Guzman, Time, 9 Dec. 2025
  • And a reliable early warning on the basis of foreshocks or release of gases from the ground has many uncertainties and has, so far, not succeeded even with the most modern sensors.
    — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 5 Apr. 2024
  • The region was hit with a massive foreshock and earthquake over Fourth of July week, leaving both towns to pick up the pieces amid thousands of disquieting aftershocks.
    — David Wharton, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'foreshock.' 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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