flabbergaster

flabbergaster

English

Etymology

flabbergast +‎ -er

Noun

flabbergaster (plural flabbergasters)

1. A person, thing, fact or event that is flabbergasting, or that causes extreme shock.
   • 1917, Edward Livermore Burlingame, Robert Bridges, Alfred Dashiell, Scribner's Magazine (volume 61, page 143)

     Nothing on earth so delights the Mexican heart as a real flabbergaster of a funeral.

   • 2005, Jonathan Carroll, Outside the Dog Museum (Macmillan, page 197)

     This first flabbergaster was that the new Sultan had decided he wanted at least a third of the construction crew to be made up of Saruvian workers, even though the museum would be built in Austria.

2. A state of surprise or fear.[1]

Verb

flabbergaster (third-person singular simple present flabbergasters, present participle flabbergastering, simple past and past participle flabbergastered)

1. (archaic) To perplex or amaze; to shock or frighten[2]
   • 1888, Robert Smith Surtees, Hillingdon Hall, or, The cockney squire: a tale of country life (John C. Nimmo, page 155)

     But I've got an invention in my 'ead — at all events, the notion of an invention, that I ventures to say will work wonders in the terrestrial globe — flabbergaster the world!

References

1. Joseph Wright (Ed.), editor (1900) The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect‎, H. Frowde, page 376
2. Joseph Wright (Ed.), editor (1900) The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect‎, H. Frowde, page 376