flabbergasted
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word 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.
Sarah Paulson was briefly flabbergasted by the word following her around, but now jokes about it and embraces it.
From Salon • May 10, 2026
It was a scene that left residents of this pricey, palm-lined Santa Monica neighborhood flabbergasted.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 12, 2026
Jansen recalled feeling "flabbergasted" at Marrero's notes, which he said featured an array of broad and unrelated clinical observations — a "diarrhea of symptoms".
From BBC • Jan. 10, 2026
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 children and their parents were too flabbergasted to speak.
From "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
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.
