staggering
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of staggering
Explanation
A staggering amount is an astonishing, astounding, stupefying amount. Anything staggering blows your mind. If you know that stagger means to stumble around uncertainly, then you're close to the meaning of staggering: this is a word for things that are so hard to believe you might fall down when you hear them. If the President gets shot, that's staggering news. If there's a major earthquake, that's staggering. Alien life contacting the Earth would be extremely staggering. Anything that knocks your socks off or makes your mind reel is staggering.
Vocabulary lists containing staggering
Tuck Everlasting
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Hatchet
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NAEP Test Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"Staggering" cuts to its funding mean it has had to drastically cut aid packages to millions in need, it said this week.
From Barron's • Oct. 16, 2025
His 2000 debut, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” was a lightly fictionalized memoir that introduced readers to Eggers’ ironized yet deeply moving storytelling.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2025
Staggering school holidays could also prevent so many families descending on the same resort over an intense six-week period.
From BBC • May 30, 2024
On Friday’s episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Faux, also the author of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, about crypto’s flight toward the sun—or was it the moon?
From Slate • Oct. 6, 2023
Staggering slowly up the glacier beneath my overloaded pack, bearing this ridiculous metal cross, I felt like an odd sort of penitente.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
