Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To fill with consternation or dismay. See Synonyms at dismay.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See appal.
Wiktionary
- v. To depress or discourage with fear; to impress with fear in such a manner that the mind shrinks, or loses its firmness; to overcome with sudden terror or horror; to dismay; as, the sight appalled the stoutest heart.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make pale; to blanch.
- v. To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce.
- v. To depress or discourage with fear; to impress with fear in such a manner that the mind shrinks, or loses its firmness; to overcome with sudden terror or horror; to dismay.
- v. To grow faint; to become weak; to become dismayed or discouraged.
- v. To lose flavor or become stale.
- n. Terror; dismay.
WordNet 3.0
- v. fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised
- v. strike with disgust or revulsion
Etymologies
- Middle English apallen, to grow faint, from Old French apalir : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + palir, to grow pale (from pale, pale, from Latin pallidus, from pallēre, to grow pale; see pel-1 in Indo-European roots).
Examples
“Somtow himself warned that the new opera, inspired by American action movies, might "appall" some of his fellow Thais.”
“It's no wonder that the corporate elitists who actually run the Party disgust and appall themselves whenever they have to go out and appeal to the base and deal with its leaders.”
A party held together with spit, chewing gum, baling wire, and duct tape
“Under the old eyes of a principal whose narrow glance is ample to subdue but not appall, the children spill around the skinned and limbless maple as if outside the temple of a declining god of simple rituals easily met.”
“When they look at him, they see the Enlightenment and it appalls them in the same way that creationists appall the enlightened.”
The Huffington Post: Terry Curtis Fox: Paladino, Rabbis and a New Religious Taxonomy
“When human beings created an ad for a publication, they took care to avoid situations where the combination of a certain ad with a certain type of article would produce a tasteless match that would appall readers and win no business for the advertisers.”
“This election is a perfect example of how Americans distrust and appall typical Liberal Democrat tax and spend policy!”
“Why does ignorance or rejection of evolution in the general population so amaze and appall the scientific community, when they themselves seem to have been caught by surprise by a classic instance of evolution — the development of drug resistance among pathogens?”
The Wall Street Journal: What Unitarians Know (and Sam Harris Doesn't)
“America, as an American, your excesses appall me. adjohnson916”
“Just as the clerical perversion in Philadelphia began to slither off the front page as if on its own slime, a fresh clerical perversion story broke this week to newly astound and appall.”
“The current assault on public sector unions would appall the man who died supporting one of them.”
The Huffington Post: Lillian Daniel: Two Undeclared Wars Dr. King Would Have Disapproved Of
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘appall’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 1051 more...
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