Word of the Day

: August 20, 2021

aghast

adjective uh-GAST

What It Means

Aghast means "shocked and upset."

// Critics were aghast at how awful the play was.

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aghast in Context

"The men who gathered in Philadelphia to create the document were the elite of society. Most were wealthy and well-educated. They were large landowners and business people. They had everything to lose if their bid for independence failed. Many of their fellow elite remained loyal to England and King George and were aghast at the behavior of those who signed the Declaration." — Gerry Mulligan, The Citrus County (Florida) Chronicle, 11 July 2021

Did You Know?

If you are aghast, you might look like you've just seen a ghost, or something similarly shocking. Aghast traces back to a Middle English verb, gasten, meaning "to frighten." Gasten (which also gave us ghastly, meaning "terrible or frightening") comes from gast, a Middle English spelling of the word ghost. Gast also came to be used in English as a verb meaning "to scare." That verb is now obsolete, but its spirit lives on in words spoken by the character Edmund in William Shakespeare's King Lear: "gasted by the noise I made, full suddenly he fled."