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.
“The Whisper Man” is a particularly egregious example of this stupefaction.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
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
Two months later, however, when Colonel Aureliano Buendía returned to Macondo, his upset was changed to stupefaction.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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.
