Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To daze or render senseless, as by a blow or loud noise.
  • transitive verb To stupefy, as with the emotional impact of an experience; astound.
  • noun A blow or shock that stupefies.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A stroke; a shock; a stupefying blow, whether physical or mental; a stunning effect.
  • To strike the ears of rudely, as it were by blows of sound; shock the hearing or the sense of; stupefy or bewilder by distracting noise.
  • To strike with stupor physically, as by a blow or violence of any kind; deprive, of consciousness or strength.
  • To benumb; stupefy; deaden.
  • To strike with astonishment; astound; amaze.
  • In stone-cutting, to injure by blows; bruise, as a stone, in such a way that splinters will drop off when the surface is cut or exposed to frost.
  • noun In marble-working, one of the deep marks made by coarse particles of sand gelling between the saw-blade and the side of the kerf.
  • noun A patch on the surface of a block of stone where the material has been injured by a heavy blow. Compare stun, transitive verb, 5.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make senseless or dizzy by violence; to render senseless by a blow, as on the head.
  • transitive verb To dull or deaden the sensibility of; to overcome; especially, to overpower one's sense of hearing.
  • transitive verb To astonish; to overpower; to bewilder.
  • noun The condition of being stunned.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness.
  • verb transitive To shock or surprise.
  • verb snooker, billiards To hit the cue ball so that it slides without topspin or backspin (and with or without sidespin) and continues at a natural angle after contact with the object ball
  • noun The condition of being stunned.
  • noun snooker, pool The effect on the cue ball where the ball is hit without topspin, backspin or sidespin.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make senseless or dizzy by or as if by a blow
  • verb overcome as with astonishment or disbelief
  • verb hit something or somebody as if with a sandbag

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English stonen, Old French estoner, from Vulgar Latin *extonāre : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin tonāre, to thunder; see (s)tenə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English stunien, stonien, stounien, from Old English stunian ("to crash, make a loud sound, resound, roar, strike with a loud sound, dash, impinge, knock, confound, astonish, stupefy"), from Proto-Germanic *stunōnan, *stunjanan (“to sound, crash, bang, groan”), from Proto-Germanic *stenanan (“to moan, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tona-, *(s)tena- (“to thunder, roar, groan”). Cognate with Middle Low German stonen ("to groan"), Middle High German stunen, stunden ("to drive, push, knock, strike"), Swedish stöna ("to moan, groan"), Icelandic stynja ("to moan"). Related also to Dutch stenen ("to groan"), German stöhnen ("to groan, moan"), German staunen ("to be astonished, be amazed, marvel at").

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Examples

  • My subject matter has inspired baffled stares at high school reunions, jokes from schoolteachers about putting their students in stun belts, and yelling sessions in elevators.

    Anne-Marie Cusac: Torture Is American Anne-Marie Cusac 2010

  • My subject matter has inspired baffled stares at high school reunions, jokes from schoolteachers about putting their students in stun belts, and yelling sessions in elevators.

    Anne-Marie Cusac: Torture Is American Anne-Marie Cusac 2010

  • My subject matter has inspired baffled stares at high school reunions, jokes from schoolteachers about putting their students in stun belts, and yelling sessions in elevators.

    Anne-Marie Cusac: Torture Is American Anne-Marie Cusac 2010

  • My subject matter has inspired baffled stares at high school reunions, jokes from schoolteachers about putting their students in stun belts, and yelling sessions in elevators.

    Anne-Marie Cusac: Torture Is American Anne-Marie Cusac 2010

  • My subject matter has inspired baffled stares at high school reunions, jokes from schoolteachers about putting their students in stun belts, and yelling sessions in elevators.

    Anne-Marie Cusac: Torture Is American Anne-Marie Cusac 2010

  • Stand straight, shoulders back, bitch-beams set to "stun" - for we are in the presence of Ms Joan Collins, who, as Alexis Colby-Carrington, committed murder while wearing a tam-o'-shanter, then proposed to a billionaire in a coma.

    Top stories from Times Online 2009

  • I mean, who wouldn’t want electric Cinderella Shoes with a built-in stun gun?

    A quiz with only one answer ewillett 2007

  • Well, so-called stun grenades are supposed to confuse and disorient a potential threat.

    CNN Transcript Apr 21, 2008 2008

  • DE LA CRUZ: So-called stun grenades are supposed to confuse and disorient a potential threat, but why are they hurting the very authorities they're meant to protect?

    CNN Transcript Apr 21, 2008 2008

  • They're using a munition colloquially call a stun grenade, not concussion grenade, that has a brilliant flash and also about three to five pounds of over-pressure that stuns everybody inside the building so that target discrimination can be conducted.

    CNN Transcript Mar 23, 2003 2003

Comments

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  • Nuts in reverse.

    July 22, 2007