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.
"We were flabbergasted really that we, both as healthy adults and relatively young parents, would have a poorly child."
From BBC • May 23, 2026
A master manipulator, he’s both a playwright and an actor, constructing scenes that might seem impossible to pull off, then delivering a virtuoso performance that leaves everyone flabbergasted by his success.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 26, 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
Schulz, who went through the IVF process with his wife, seemed genuinely flabbergasted the notoriously dishonest president had lied about this.
From Salon • Aug. 8, 2025
Marly knew it was sad for Joe, but she couldn’t help being pleased by the flabbergasted look on his face.
From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
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.
