A sudden shaking of the ground caused by movements in the Earth's crust.
A simple English compound of 'earth' and 'quake', with 'quake' meaning 'to shake' from Old English 'cwacian'. People named the event by describing exactly what seemed to happen: the earth itself shaking.
The word captures how ancient people experienced it—no science, just 'the ground is shaking'. Earthquakes can move entire cities by centimeters in seconds, quietly redrawing maps without anyone noticing.
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