† astoneastunv.

Etymology: The etymology and form-history present points of difficulty. To all appearance, astone , astune , astoune , was < Old French estone-r , estuner , estouner (now étonner ) to stun, strike senseless, stupefy, shock, astonish < Latin *extonāre , < ex out + tonāre to thunder: compare classical Latin attonāre to strike with a thunderbolt, stun, stupefy. See a- prefix⁵. The nature of its relation to stun v. is as yet doubtful; connection with modern German staunen, erstaunen, uncertain.The form-history is rendered more difficult by the Middle English habit of spelling on for un (compare son , sun ; ton , tun ; done , dun ; some , sum ; won , wont , etc .), which probably obtained here, since Gower rhymed astone , sone (= Old English sunu , son), Chaucer astoned , woned (= Old English wunod , wont), and 18th cent. writers had still astun . Old French o , u , sometimes gives English u as in tun , gum , sum ; sometimes ou , ow (through ū ) as in crown , sound , round , confound ; hence the forms astun , astoun ; the late aston seems, like astony , astonish , to have been influenced by later French estonner ; astoon may have been a phonetic spelling of astūn ; astoyne is unexplained. stun v. is of later appearance, and so far as evidence goes, seems to be an aphetic form of astun. These words do not appear to have any connection with Old English stunian to resound (the sense ‘impingere’ was only a bad guess of Junius, repeated by Lye, etc.); but, both in meaning and form, it is difficult to consider them not related to German staunen, erstaunen, a modern word adopted in 18th century from Swiss stūne, for which German scholars would seek a Germanic etymology: see Grimm, Kluge. From astone and its past participles astoned, astun'd, astound, have arisen the variants astony, astonied, whence again astonish, astonished, with their derivatives; also a new verb astound, and participle astounded, with their derivatives. To astun, astony, astonish, astound, are thus all of common origin.