astounded

adjective

as·​tound·​ed ə-ˈstau̇n-dəd 

: feeling or showing great surprise or wonder : astonished, amazed

was astounded to hear the news

We were too astounded to speak. We could only stand there staring in amazement.

—Arthur Conan Doyle

Synonyms

• amazed
• stunned
• shocked
• astonished
• surprised

Examples of astounded in a Sentence

were astounded to realize that we were holding the winning lottery ticket

the astounded look on the tourists' faces when the police ordered them to leave the country immediately

Recent Examples on the Web

Predictably, the hubbub surrounding the photo was eventually framed as a war between uptight virgins and godless heathens, with a quieter contingent astounded only by the fact that this kind of marketing could still be so effective. —Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2025

SpaceX astounded space aficionados around the world this week with the latest demo flight of its Starship, which from the start has been designed to shuttle spacefarers to Mars, Professor Webb tells me in an interview. —Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025

Even in her 90s, her easily flitting vocals astounded, bouncing from deep valleys to breathy peaks, and, like the best jazz, mimicking the volatility and joy of the human spirit. —Anna Kaufman, USA Today, 12 Aug. 2025

Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor at MIT who devised the first chatbot in the 1960s, was astounded and deeply troubled by how readily people poured out their hearts to his program. —Krista Stevens, Longreads, 8 July 2025

Word History

Etymology

originally doubled past participle of astonen, astonien "to stun, daze, surprise" — more at astonish

First Known Use

circa 1540, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for astounded

• abounded
• compounded
• confounded
• expounded
• foregrounded
• impounded
• propounded
• rebounded
• resounded
• subrounded
• surrounded
• unbounded