stupefaction
Americannoun
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astonishment
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the act of stupefying or the state of being stupefied
Etymology
Origin of stupefaction
1535–45; < New Latin stupefactiōn- (stem of stupefactiō ) senseless state, equivalent to stupefact ( us ), past participle of stupefacere to stupefy + -iōn- -ion
Vocabulary lists containing stupefaction
The Turn of the Screw
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Pollyanna
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Selection Vocabulary 4, Unit 3
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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.
Rogan, wearing his persona as a babe-in-the-woods naif, listened to this nonsense in slack-jawed stupefaction.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 12, 2024
I suspect he absorbed enough of your stress pre-agreement to go through all five stages of secondhand negativity: concern, sympathetic stress, bored stupefaction, desperation, bargaining for silence.
From Washington Post • Apr. 24, 2022
But the purposeful sensory overload mostly yields head-spinning stupefaction, leaving a viewer feeling like Wile E. Coyote after hitting a mesa wall.
From New York Times • Jul. 14, 2021
I swam in the freezing loch as my family looked on with some stupefaction.
From The Guardian • Mar. 23, 2021
And Mr Marshall it was who first caused stupefaction amongst ladies and gentlemen visiting Charleville House with displays of silver polished to previously unimagined standards.
From "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
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.
