flabbergast, transitive verb (colloquial).
Overwhelmed with amazement. Hence flabbergasted.
In a sentence: “His unusual
behavior left me flabbergasted.”
The etymology of
this word is not clear. From wiktionary.org:
“Origin uncertain,
Hotten says it is from Old English; Whitney and Smith suggests flabby [soft,
not firm] or flap (strike) + gast (astonish); The Imperial Dictionary connects
it with flabber (related to flap, to strike) + the root of aghast, and notes
that flabagast may have been the root (to strike aghast); first documented as
slang in 1772; Cassell gives it as dialectical from Suffolk, from flap or
flabby + aghast, possibly related to Scottish flabrigast (to boast) or flabrigastit
(worn out with exertion); Smith relates it to flab (to quake) or flap (to make
a flap over something) + Middle English agasten (to terrify), and relates it to
aghast, ghastly and ghost.“
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