Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To cause to be overcome with astonishment; astound. synonym: surprise.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To overcome with confusion or bewilderment; astonish, with ludicrous effect; confound: as, the news completely flabbergasted him.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Jocular To astonish; to strike with wonder, esp. by extraordinary statements.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb overcome with amazement

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin uncertain. Hotten says it is from Old English; Whitney and Smith suggests flabby or flap (strike) + gast (astonish); The Imperial Dictionary connects it with flabber (related to flap, to strike) + the root of aghast, and notes that flabagast may have been the root (to strike aghast); first documented as slang in 1772; Cassell gives it as dialectical from Suffolk, from flap or flabby + aghast, possibly related to Scottish flabrigast (to boast) or flabrigastit (worn out with exertion); Smith relates it to flab (to quake) or flap (to make a flap over something) + Middle English agasten (to terrify), and relates it to aghast, ghastly and ghost

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