All words

astound

Meaning

To fill with great surprise or wonder.

Examples by difficulty

Basic: Simple, everyday vocabulary — the easiest to read.

The magician pulled a rabbit from an empty hat. Gasps filled the room. Everyone’s eyes widened, mouths agape. The trick was so unexpected, so impossible, it made them all astound.

The tiny, iridescent beetle, no bigger than a grain of rice, suddenly unfolded wings that shimmered like captured starlight. It lifted into the air, performing a dizzying loop before vanishing into the thick, spore-laden mist. Everyone gasped, their faces filled with such surprise and wonder, they could only stare, completely.

The crowd gasped when the tiny hamster, Reginald, successfully navigated the miniature obstacle course. His speed and precision completely astound everyone. He even stuck the landing on a tiny, wobbly seesaw, a feat no one thought possible.

The magician pulled a live llama from a tiny hat. The audience gasped, their jaws dropping. It was a sight so wild, so unexpected, it was enough to astound even the most jaded circus-goer. Seriously, where did that fuzzy beast even fit?

Barnaby the badger, famous for his impressive collection of mismatched socks, suddenly produced a perfectly ripe banana from his ear. The sheer unexpectedness of it all made the woodland creatures gasp; they were filled with great surprise and wonder.

Normal: Standard, everyday language.

The magician pulled a live elephant out of a tiny hat. Everyone in the audience gasped, their jaws dropping. They couldn't believe their eyes; the impossible spectacle was meant to astound them.

The ancient, moss-covered automaton whirred to life, its optical sensors glowing with an eerie blue. The sheer ingenuity of its clockwork heart, still ticking after centuries, was enough to astound the assembled scholars.

The ancient gears, unseen for centuries beneath the city, began to whir. Lights flickered on, illuminating vast caverns and intricate machinery that defied known engineering. A hush fell over the explorers as the sheer scale and alien complexity of it all began to astound them, their mouths hanging open.

I stared, jaw agape, as my cat, Bartholomew, levitated his kibble bowl. The sheer wonder of it all managed to fill me with great surprise and amaze me. Bartholomew, meanwhile, just blinked, then nonchalantly floated it back down.

My pet capybara, Bartholomew, can knit a full-sized argyle sweater using only his prehensile tail. Watching him work his stubby little paws, needles clicking away at warp speed, is enough to astound even the most jaded observer. He's currently accepting commissions for tiny alpaca sweaters.

Advanced: Richer vocabulary that stretches an upper-level reader.

The child's eyes widened, truly filled with great surprise and wonder. He couldn't believe his luck; the magician's trick was designed to astound, and it certainly succeeded. He felt a profound sense of awe at the impossible feat he'd just witnessed.

The archaeologist brushed away millennia of dust, revealing intricate glyphs that seemed to pulse with an inner light. The sheer complexity and artistry of the ancient script, unlike anything previously discovered, was enough to astound her. Generations of study hadn't prepared her for this breathtaking revelation.

The sheer complexity of the antique astrolabe, with its interlocking brass rings and delicate celestial markings, was enough to astound the novice cartographer. He had only ever seen diagrams; the tangible artifact, a legacy from a forgotten astronomer, truly filled him with wonder.

Barnaby's attempt to juggle flaming hedgehogs was designed to astound the village, but the resulting chaos, with singed beards and panicked chickens, managed to astound them for entirely different reasons. The sheer, uncontrolled pandemonium left spectators breathless with unexpected mirth.

The renowned inventor's latest contraption, a self-buttering toast catapult, was designed to astound the annual National Breakfast Symposium. Witnesses were genuinely filled with great surprise and wonder as golden-brown slices arced majestically, narrowly missing the dignitary's prized monocle before landing perfectly on his crumpet.

Challenging: Rare, high-register vocabulary for serious word lovers.

The magician's final trick, a flurry of vanishing doves, did nothing but astound the entire audience. Gasps rippled through the opulent theater as the birds simply ceased to exist, leaving spectators in a state of bewildered awe.

The sheer audacity of the proposed orbital infrastructure project, a veritable megastructure to habitate Jovian moons, did more than impress; it managed to astound even the most jaded engineers.

The alchemist stared, dumbfounded. His latest transmute, a lead ingot to something resembling solidified moonlight, seemed to astound even him. He’d theorized such a phenomenon for years, but witnessing it, feeling the spectral coolness radiate, truly surpassed all expectation.

The gargantuan gastropod, adorned with a monocle of glistening dewdrop, began to spontaneously recite Shakespearean sonnets. Its prodigious pronouncements, delivered with a baritone rumble, were enough to astound even the most jaded arachnids lounging in their silken domiciles, their multitudinous eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated befuddlement.

The itinerant raconteur's prodigious ability to spontaneously transmute common garden slugs into miniature, operatic gargoyles was enough to astound even the most jaded denizens of the subterranean cantina. Patrons gasped, spewing their fermented bog water, as a particularly corpulent gastropod began a surprisingly mellifluous aria about the existential quandaries of dew.

Difficulty

Normal — Everyday words worth reinforcing.

Appears in

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