| 释义 |
dumbfound, dumfound, v.|dʌmˈfaʊnd|
[app. f. dumb a. + -found in confound.]
trans. To strike dumb; to confound, confuse; to nonplus.
1653Urquhart Rabelais i. vi. (1694) 22, I beseech you never Dum-found or Embarrass your Heads with these idle Conceits. 1681Otway Soldier's Fort. ii. i, He has but one eye, and we are on his blind side; I'll dumb-found him (strikes him on the shoulder). 1762Sterne Tr. Shandy VI. ii, To cramp and dumbfound his opponents. 1861Darwin in Life & Lett. (1887) II. 361, I cannot wriggle out of it; I am dumbfounded.
Hence dumbˈfounded ppl. a., dumbˈfounding vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1682Epil. to Mrs. Behn's False Count, Among all the follys here abounding, None took like the new Ape-trick of Dumfounding. 1690Dryden Prol. to Beaum. & Fl.'s Prophetess 47 That witty recreation, call'd dumb-founding. 1770C. Jenner Placid Man II. 139 That kind of dumb⁓founding astonishment. 1815Moore Mem. (1853) II. 70 The dum-founded fascination that seizes people. |