释义 |
▪ I. ˈflabbergast, n. ? Sc. rare. [f. next; for the sense cf. ‘flabrigast to gasconade. Perthshire’ (Jam.).] Bombast.
1831Fraser's Mag. IV. 161 The ‘Asiatic style of oratory’ with..its meretricious flabbergast,—its diluvial verbiage. ▪ II. flabbergast, v. colloq.|ˈflæbəgɑːst, -æ-| Also 8 flaba-, 9 flaber-. [First mentioned in 1772 as a new piece of fashionable slang; possibly of dialectal origin; Moor 1823 records it as a Suffolk word, and Jamieson, Suppl. 1825, has flabrigast to gasconade, flabrigastit worn out with exertion, as used in Perthshire. The formation is unknown; it is plausibly conjectured that the word is an arbitrary invention suggested by flabby or flap and aghast.] trans. To put (a person) in such confusion that he does not for the moment know what to do or say; to astonish utterly, to confound.
1772Ann. Reg. ii. 191 On New Words, Now we are flabbergasted and bored from morning to night. 1801M. Edgeworth Angelina iv. (1832) 77 They quite flabbergasted me. 1840Disraeli 15 July in Corr. w. Sister (1886) 158 My facts flabbergasted him. 1878Mozley Ess. Hist. & Theol. I. 89 It perfectly flabbergasted the Commons. Hence ˌflabbergaˈstation, the action of flabbergasting; the state of being flabbergasted.
1856Punch 13 Dec. XXXI. 240/1 We scarcely remember to have ever seen any respectable party in a greater state of flabbergastation. |