stupefaction

[ stoo-puh-fak-shuhn, styoo- ]

noun

1. the state of being stupefied; stupor.
2. overwhelming amazement.

stupefaction

/ ˌstjuːpɪˈfækʃən /

noun

1. astonishment
2. the act of stupefying or the state of being stupefied

Word History and Origins

Origin of stupefaction¹

1535–45; < New Latin stupefactiōn- (stem of stupefactiō ) senseless state, equivalent to stupefact ( us ), past participle of stupefacere to stupefy + -iōn- -ion

Example Sentences

In malignant conflicts, the kind that leave everyone worse off, there is the thing we argue about endlessly, to the point of stupefaction.

From Washington Post

Ob ran his bony fingers through that last bit of hair on his head and looked down to the ground in stupefaction.

From Literature

I suspect he absorbed enough of your stress pre-agreement to go through all five stages of secondhand negativity: concern, sympathetic stress, bored stupefaction, desperation, bargaining for silence.

From Washington Post

Writing for the London Review of Books, novelist Martin Amis lamented her “somewhat top-heavy interest in madness and stupefaction — the vanished knack of ‘making things matter.’

From Washington Post

But the purposeful sensory overload mostly yields head-spinning stupefaction, leaving a viewer feeling like Wile E. Coyote after hitting a mesa wall.

From New York Times