Library / English Dictionary

AMAZE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be a mystery or bewildering to

Example:

This question really stuck me

Synonyms:

amaze; baffle; beat; bewilder; dumbfound; flummox; get; gravel; mystify; nonplus; perplex; pose; puzzle; stick; stupefy; vex

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "amaze" is one way to...):

bedevil; befuddle; confound; confuse; discombobulate; fox; fuddle; throw (be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "amaze"):

mix up; stump (cause to be perplexed or confounded)

riddle (set a difficult problem or riddle)

elude; escape (be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The bad news will amaze him

The good news will amaze her

Sense 2

Meaning:

Affect with wonder

Example:

Your ability to speak six languages amazes me!

Synonyms:

amaze; astonish; astound

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "amaze" is one way to...):

surprise (cause to be surprised)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "amaze"):

dazzle (amaze or bewilder, as with brilliant wit or intellect or skill)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The good news will amaze her

The performance is likely to amaze Sue

Derivation:

amazement (the feeling that accompanies something extremely surprising)

Credits

 Context examples: 

"Ruth!" he said, amazed and bewildered.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The honest Portuguese were equally amazed at my strange dress, and the odd manner of delivering my words, which, however, they understood very well.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You cannot think I mean to hurry you, said he, in an undervoice, perceiving the amazing trepidation with which she made up the note, you cannot think I have any such object.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

That is an amazing horrid book, is it not?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

“Nature is an amazing architect. Bamboo is structured in a really clever way,” said Darshil Shah, a researcher in Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture, who led the study.

(Visualising heat flow in bamboo could help design more energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings, University of Cambridge)

But some amazing experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And that you should have been so mistaken, is amazing!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

There was little fight left in the peasants, however, still dazed by the explosion, amazed at their own losses and disheartened by the arrival of the disciplined archers.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His speech was clear and plain, with none of those strange London ways which had so amazed me.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Are they foreigners?" I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)