Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- interj. Used to express anger, surprise, or indignation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- An exclamation formerly used as an oath or as an expression of anger or wonder.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- interj. An exclamation formerly used as an oath, and an expression of anger or wonder.
Etymologies
- Shortening and alteration of God's wounds!.
Examples
“When you go home tonight, roll some twenty siders with friends, use the word "zounds" in a sentence, then leaf through the 1E Dungeon Master's Guide and marvel at the breadth of the man's imagination.”
“Natalie Angier weighs in on the human proclivity for cursing in a lengthy essay in the NYT: "The Jacobean dramatist Ben Jonson peppered his plays with fackings and "peremptorie Asses," and Shakespeare could hardly quill a stanza without inserting profanities of the day like "zounds" or "sblood”
“BTW, did you know that zounds! is a foreshortening of God's Wounds?”
“Labels: comics comments: annie said ... zounds! where did you meet this amazing scoundrel of graphic wonder!”
“June 3, 2009 at 7:35 am uh ohes… parrothead starting to zounds like Igor….”
Da dusts bunnies quit - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“Hmmm…zounds liek ai hab tew draw up an action plan outline fur Nov 2.”
Player Cat - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“February 7, 2008 at 10:45 am fear… is zounds liek… Boing boing boing…”
Did you heer dat? - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“Yes | No | Report from jaja wrote 3 years 12 weeks ago zounds needs go to CENSORED. shut the CENSORED up zounds.”
“December 21, 2007 at 3:06 pm zounds xactlee laik meh, c b… heehee…laik chezbergr! cb!”
skillz. - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“My observation is that Catholic profanity seems to be very Catholic, but euphemized "'Sblood", "zounds", "begob", and things I can't remember from Rabelais', Rimbaud's and Canadian French.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘zounds’.
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zzzzzz
Featuring a zee or two.
pizzazz, syzygy, chutzpah, zip, zap, intermezzi, jazz, mizzenmast, zoonosis, razzamatazz, zamzodden, zounds and 1 more...
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one word exclamations
keep it rated G please, thanks!
zoiks, sheesh, gosh, shucks, jeez, woot, heck, thunderation, oops, gadzooks, what, hey and 50 more...
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Nice archaic words
oneiric, tisane, pecksniffian, eftsoons, forsooth, egad, ensorcell, zounds, fie, huzzah, consarn it, prithee and 2 more...
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Yoinks, Zoinks, & Zounds!
A collection of interjections and verbal ejaculations.
yoinks, zoinks, zounds, crikey, lawsy, oomph, unf, shazbot, lordy, mox nix, cosmic, no dice and 30 more...
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Zee's zees
zounds, syzygy, pizzaz, zamzodden, xyzzy, zzzax, ziz, razzamatazz, razzmatazz, zoonosis, syzygy, chutzpah and 11 more...
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miscellany
preposterous, minimalism, outnumbered, subroutine, malinger, oddity, eccentricity, laughable, oxymoronic, interstellar, winter, heedless and 335 more...
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persnickety parlance
ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe, timorous and 1027 more...
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MsHalston's Words
theoretically, insufferable, apolitico, milquetoast, egregious, aplomb, elan, fraught, flummox, befrocked, moll, molten and 605 more...
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Dan: You read this already. — Your pal, Dan
Long ago, I learned a useful habit from a good friend: Every time he looked up a word in his dictionary, he’d put a mark next to it. His explanation for this was vague at best, but I understood a...
dittography, haplology, haplography, idiomology, cacoepy, orthoepist, psellism, pronunciation spe..., galbe, theropod, publican, sciolist and 110 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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Wenderful's Whirled World of Blurred Brilliance
Lexicon I likez... in no order whatsoever.
omnivalence, cerebration, sprachgefühl, schadenfreude, rutabaga, septuagenarian, foible, vainglorious, leviathan, remunerative, catastrophize, ancillary and 182 more...
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Words. Just words.
Our chief weapons are words, that's all. Just words. Only words, not justly words, that is.
That is to say that there are only words in this list, not words that are just, although s...profligacy, monty, the arc of history, luddite, peremptory, brusque, languid, callipygian, perniciously, insidiousness, camelot, perforce and 189 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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deidionysus's list
Words, words, words!
cartesian, shavian, dithyramb, dreadnaught, lea, adamantine, titanomachy, theomachy, aethereal, ambrosia, ambrosial, aether and 183 more...
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kevincooper's Words
prosopopeia, lisle, magisterial, zeitgeist, zeugma, bloviate, apocryphal, bon mot, cacophony, euphony, brigandier, micturition and 313 more...
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Pluralia Tantum
Nouns that are common in plural form but are non-existent or rarely used in singular form.
scissors, thanks, clothes, remains, tights, trousers, pants, news, billiards, means, mathematics, physics and 221 more...


--Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder Sep 4, 2010