speechlessness

• “In Homer there is a term for speechlessness as a defect not a transient emotional state, and in Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles uses a word meaning “privation of voice.””

  Simon & Schuster: Knotted Tongues

• “I was shocked into speechlessness, which is rare for me.”

  Propeller Most Popular Stories

• “Then too he learns to suspect that when he has tried to be impressive, he has often only succeeded in being priggish; and the result is that he falls into a kind of speechlessness, comforting himself, as he sits mute and awkward, unduly elongated, and with unaccountable projections of limb and feature, that if only other people were a little less self-absorbed, had the gift of perceiving hidden worth and real character, and could pierce a little below the surface, they would realise what reserves of force and tenderness lay beneath the heavy shapelessness of which he is still conscious.”

  At Large

• “speechlessness' of sensation, its inability to make any”

  Meaning of Truth

• “The win put the Cardinals within two victories of their 11th World Championship, but it was Pujols's performance that pushed the players and coaches who witnessed it to the point of speechlessness, something that doesn't happen very often with a group that tries to avoid overstatement.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Pujols Hits Three Homers in Cards' Rout

• “She was speechless, and believe me, this is not a woman given to speechlessness.”

  The Huffington Post: Charlie Carillo: It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't a Diamond Ring

• “When I responded with speechlessness, he explained that his father, as a young man, wanted passionately to be a newspaper reporter, but couldn't interview people because he stuttered.”

  The Wall Street Journal: 'Gnomeo': A Bard's Garden of Delights

• “I just got up and walked around my dining room table, which I guess is the keyboard era's answer to speechlessness.”

  The Washington Post: Who's the train wreck in this situation?

• “Actually it lays bare the flesh and the wanton egg that misleads men into speechlessness, their testicles shining, idle, god-loved, and red.”

  Fictionaut: girls in summer dresses

• “As hushed and beaten as everyone was at this point, you could hear a deeper pall gel in the speechlessness.”

  Fictionaut: It Wasn't Me.

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