flabbergasted
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Explanation
When you see your mom come back from the salon with bright green spiky hair and your jaw drops to the floor in total shock, you’re flabbergasted. You are really, really shocked — pretty much speechless. Use the adjective flabbergasted to describe someone who's astounded or surprised for any reason, good or bad. You could be flabbergasted at how astonishingly expensive a parking ticket is, or at how incredibly delicious pineapple pizza is. Flabbergasted has been used since the late 18th century, but no one knows for sure where it originated. The word sounds like what it means: when you say it out loud — "flabbergasted!" — it somehow captures the spirit of astonishment and shock.
Vocabulary lists containing flabbergasted
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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.
One former student told us he was "absolutely flabbergasted" to see his former coach in the news while others spoke of a respected and "warm, witty, fun" coach.
From BBC • Jan. 5, 2026
A woman whose parents founded the charity Alan Carr donated his Celebrity Traitors' winnings to says the gesture has left her family "flabbergasted".
From BBC • Nov. 14, 2025
Yet the news that inflation could be worse is hardly comforting for millions of Americans still flabbergasted at the prices of necessities like food, housing and insurance.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 24, 2025
The panel was flabbergasted when Britt Lower wasn’t nominated for her work in the first season of “Severance”; they have her near the top of the Round 1 list this time.
From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2025
But when she opened the Baggy and took a sniff and poked her finger in and tasted a pinch and had Primitiva do the same, they were flabbergasted.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
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.
