astonishing
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of astonishing
Explanation
Something astonishing is astounding, staggering, stupefying, amazing, or incredible. It's not something you see every day. This is a pretty strong word. A dog shaking hands is not astonishing, but a dog calling 911 for its owner definitely is. Astonishing things are amazing; they blow your mind. When people first walked on the moon, that was astonishing. Miracles are astonishing. If you say, "Holy cow! I can't believe what I'm seeing," you're probably seeing something astonishing.
Vocabulary lists containing astonishing
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Nothing But the Truth
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Copper Sun
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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.
The particle carried an astonishing energy of around 220 PeV, more than ten times greater than previously detected high energy neutrinos, and researchers still do not know exactly where it came from.
From Science Daily • May 24, 2026
An astonishing number of them opened here, in Southern California, although you would be hard pressed to find many nowadays.
From Los Angeles Times • May 22, 2026
Where the blindness becomes astonishing is that the actual military situation isn’t the one being described to us with unhealthy delight.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 21, 2026
But the British Isles have "astonishing scenery" and "extraordinary animal dramas and wildlife spectacles to match anything I have seen on my global travels", he said.
From BBC • May 8, 2026
An athlete boasts that in Rhodes he performed the most astonishing jump and claims he can produce eyewitnesses to testify to it.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
