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CONSTERNATION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Fear resulting from the awareness of danger
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("consternation" is a kind of...):
fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))
Attribute:
alarming (frightening because of an awareness of danger)
unalarming (not alarming; assuaging alarm)
Context examples:
"But the professors!" I cried, in consternation.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"My dearest girl, what is the matter?" cried John, rushing in, with awful visions of scalded hands, sudden news of affliction, and secret consternation at the thought of the guest in the garden.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The next afternoon, accompanied by Arthur, she arrived in the Morse carriage, to the unqualified delight of the Silva tribe and of all the urchins on the street, and to the consternation of Maria.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He then handed her in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The tent, illumined by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain; and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and François bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered from his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
The mother's consternation was excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little sufferer.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
A thought struck me. I ran to the windlass. It would not work. He had broken it. We looked at each other in consternation.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I was almost in consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
