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punch-drunk

adjective

ˈpənch-ˌdrəŋk How to pronounce punch-drunk (audio)
Definition of punch-drunknext
as in dazed
suffering from mental confusion punch-drunk from having stayed up all night, she struggled through the exam

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of punch-drunk The yen looked punch-drunk on Wednesday after a sudden spill overnight, pressured by wide interest rate differentials between Japan and the rest of the world. — Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 19 June 2026 Candy thought so too, later recalling that the only hard part of filming the scene was doing it over and over again for Hughes and his punch-drunk crew. — Lizz Schumer, PEOPLE, 7 Oct. 2025 Guiducci arrives at a moment when some of that anger has subsided, and the punch-drunk culture seems counterintuitively eager to escape into nostalgia and tastemaking, splashy profiles, and — just sometimes — confrontational journalism. — Max Tani, semafor.com, 25 Aug. 2025 Having given us a punch-drunk vision of romantic dilemmas in her masterpiece of a debut, Song now delivers a more practical, hangover-adjacent look at how the human need for relationships gets turned into a bespoke luxury item. — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 12 June 2025 Only the most punch-drunk partisan would give Republicans as much as a 50-50 chance of succeeding Gavin Newsom. — Mark Barabak, Mercury News, 30 Apr. 2025 It’s better described as a series of springy volleys backward and forward through time—the movie ping-pongs between 2019 and 2006, with stops in between—that leave you feeling a little dizzy, even a bit punch-drunk. — Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 26 Apr. 2024 The notion that anyone might make a beeline to turn this punch-drunk nonsense into a new Statham franchise seems unlikely. — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Jan. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for punch-drunk
  1. dazed
  2. bewildered
  3. confused
  4. distracted
  5. stunned
  6. dizzy
Adjective
  • Laiken Randolph appeared dazed, and possibly on drugs, officers remarked.
    — Brittany Wallman, Miami Herald, 11 Sep. 2026
  • Hsu maps a Los Angeles of leftovers and castoffs; portraits of friends and strangers in the street are full of dazed, inscrutable expressions.
    — Hua Hsu, New Yorker, 5 Sep. 2026
Definition of dazed
Adjective
  • Five o’clock Saturday, the Riverside Stadium and Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg is fist-pumping a half-bewildered but fully enthused home crowd.
    — Michael Walker, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2026
  • When kids first got online, parents were bewildered and alarmed, but kids, who tend to gravitate to new technology, found freedom in a space that was basically ungoverned.
    — Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2026
Definition of bewildered
Adjective
  • Call them wrong, or confused, or uninformed, but these are the voters who decide elections.
    — Isaac Arnsdorf, New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The Londoner walked away looking only slightly less confused.
    — Taylor Eldridge, Kansas City Star, 18 Sep. 2026
Definition of confused
Adjective
  • This is a film that allows, wants, even demands that the viewer become distracted, tired, and fidgety.
    — Sam Bodrojan, IndieWire, 17 Sep. 2026
  • The driver was cited with distracted driving and failure to maintain a lane, and an internal investigation by MARTA has been launched, police said.
    — Irene Wright, USA Today, 15 Sep. 2026
Definition of distracted
Adjective
  • King seemed stunned that an actual Black person had views that did not conform to her preconception of what a Black man should think.
    — Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 19 Sep. 2026
  • So stunned was Sarkisian that the 52-year-old coach completely forgot how to form big-boy words with his mouth.
    — Candace Buckner, New York Times, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of stunned
Adjective
  • What that film didn’t foretell was the Pakistani-American director’s fluent command of dizzy action setpieces.
    — Guy Lodge, Variety, 14 Sep. 2026
  • Several other instances of illness linked to the MBG program have cropped up, including a group of 15 elementary schoolers and a school principal who became nauseous and dizzy after a meal in the Aceh province’s Bener Meriah regency, per the AP.
    — Bailey Richards, PEOPLE, 5 Sep. 2026
Definition of dizzy

Browse Nearby Words

punch
punch-drunk
punched
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Cite this Entry

“Punch-drunk.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/punch-drunk. Accessed 27 Sep. 2026.

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