astonishment

noun as·ton·ish·ment \ ə-ˈstä-nish-mənt \

|Updated on: 8 Jul 2018

Examples: astonishment in a Sentence

Definition of astonishment

1 a : a feeling of great surprise and wonder : the state of being astonished : amazement

The garden's beauty filled me with astonishment.

b : consternation

2 : something that astonishes : a cause of amazement or wonder

Everything that he had seen so far … had been so astonishing that he began to wonder whether there could possibly be any more astonishments left.
—Roald Dahl

See astonishment defined for English-language learners

Examples of astonishment in a Sentence

The garden's beauty filled me with astonishment.
A crowd watched in astonishment as he jumped from the bridge.
They discovered to their astonishment that their car had been stolen.
Much to the astonishment of her friends and family, she left school to pursue her acting career.

Recent Examples of astonishment from the Web

Among other astonishments here are numerous gorgeous plasters—penciled, incised and painted.

— lance esplund, WSJ, "‘Giacometti’ Review: Beyond a Retrospective," 19 June 2018
At the time, however, Gen. Hays’s promotion was greeted with astonishment from some quarters and derision from others.

— harrison smith, Washington Post, "Anna Mae Hays, nurse who became U.S. military’s first female general, dies at 97," 8 Jan. 2018
To his astonishment, their system seems to be performing well.

— steven levy, WIRED, "Inside Palmer Luckey’s Bid to Build A Border Wall," 11 June 2018
Airmen expressed astonishment over the fact that Lindbergh, facing 17 hours of continuous night and day flying, spent 30 minutes engaged in mimic air battle with naval aviators.

— sandiegouniontribune.com, "May 11, 1927: Lindbergh winging his way from San Diego to Paris," 11 May 2018
On the playing field in high school, there were times when opposing players would watch him in awe and astonishment.

— mike bianchi, OrlandoSentinel.com, "Long before UCF's Shaquem Griffin played with one hand, Carl Joseph was one-legged wonder at Bethune-Cookman," 5 May 2018
In the directors’ box, the club’s executives veered between ecstasy and astonishment.

— rory smith, New York Times, "James Pallotta Soaks In Roma’s Stunning Win," 12 Apr. 2018
My own would be relief and an astonishment that such a grotesque piece of neo-Nazi propaganda had ever been permitted to stay there for any length of time.

— andrew sullivan, Daily Intelligencer, "Denying Genetics Isn’t Shutting Down Racism, It’s Fueling It," 30 Mar. 2018
In one skit, characters played by him and Chris Rock were consistently amused by their white friends’ election-night astonishment that Trump won.

— chris kaltenbach, baltimoresun.com, "Comedian Dave Chappelle coming to Lyric," 22 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'astonishment.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.