Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To fill with consternation or dismay. See Synonyms at dismay.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- 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.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- transitive v. To make pale; to blanch.
- transitive v. To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce.
- transitive 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.
- intransitive v. To grow faint; to become weak; to become dismayed or discouraged.
- intransitive v. To lose flavor or become stale.
- n. Terror; dismay.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See appal.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised
- v. strike with disgust or revulsion
Etymologies
Examples
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Somtow himself warned that the new opera, inspired by American action movies, might "appall" some of his fellow Thais.
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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
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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.
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When they look at him, they see the Enlightenment and it appalls them in the same way that creationists appall the enlightened.
Terry Curtis Fox: Paladino, Rabbis and a New Religious Taxonomy
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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.
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This election is a perfect example of how Americans distrust and appall typical Liberal Democrat tax and spend policy!
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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?
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America, as an American, your excesses appall me. adjohnson916
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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.
Michele Somerville: Christian Sacrifice And The Unholy Crusade To Defrock Roy Bourgeois
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The current assault on public sector unions would appall the man who died supporting one of them.
Lillian Daniel: Two Undeclared Wars Dr. King Would Have Disapproved Of
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