stun
/stʌn/ verb, noun
Forms stuns stunning stunned stin
- verb (transitive) To incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness. “Bill tried to stun the snake by striking it on the head.”
- verb (transitive) To shock or surprise. “The celebrity was stunned to find herself confronted with unfounded allegations on the front page of a newspaper.”
- verb (snooker, billiards) To hit the cue ball so that it slides without topspin or backspin (and with or without sidespin) and continues at a natural angle after contact with the object ball
- verb (intransitive, video games) To enter a stunned state. “The monsters stun when you jump on them.”
- verb (Singapore, military, slang) To confiscate (an unguarded rifle, magazine, piece of equipment, etc.) from an unsuspecting soldier as punishment for neglect.
- noun The condition of being stunned.
- noun That which stuns; a shock; a stupefying blow.
- noun (Newfoundland) A person who lacks intelligence.
- noun (billiards, snooker, pool) The effect on the cue ball where the ball is hit without topspin, backspin or sidespin. “Williams will need a lot of stun to avoid going in the middle pocket”
- noun (science fiction, uncountable) A low-range setting for an energy weapon that will stun its target but not injure or kill it.
Synonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English stonen, stone (“to astonish, stun, numb”, also stoneyen), probably either directly or indirectly from Anglo-Norman estoner (“to stun, astonish”), from Late Latin *stunāre, from Frankish *stunōn (“to thunder, crash”) or perhaps from an unattested Latin *extonāre (“to thunder out, make a thunderous sound”), from tonāre ("to thunder"; compare Latin attonāre). An alternative etymology derives stonen from Old English stunian (“to smash, thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *stunōn. See also astonish, astound.
Compare Swedish stöna (“to moan, groan”), Danish stønne (“to moan, groan”), Icelandic stynja (“to moan”), Occitan estonar (“to surprise”), and French étonner (“to surprise”), and more distantly, Dutch steunen (“to groan; support”), German stöhnen (“to groan, moan”), German staunen (“to be astonished, be amazed, marvel at”), and Russian стонать (stonatʹ), стена́ть (stenátʹ, “to moan, groan”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To make senseless or dizzy by violence; to render senseless by a blow, as on the head.
- verb To dull or deaden the sensibility of; to overcome; especially, to overpower one's sense of hearing.
- noun The condition of being stunned.
Etymology [OE. stonien, stownien; either fr. AS. stunian to resound (cf. D. stenen to groan, G. stöhnen, Icel. stynja, Gr. stan to thunder, and E. thunder), or from the same source as E. astonish. *168.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “stun”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details