Also spelled dumfounded
adj
Freq #42658
Meanings
-
1
adj
so astonished or bewildered that one is temporarily unable to speak or react
The researchers were dumbfounded when the supposedly extinct plant began to flower.
Thesaurus
Synonyms
Word family
Forms
dumfounderdumfoundered
Derived forms
dumbfounddumbfounding
Etymology
A past-participial adjective from dumbfound, a seventeenth-century blend of dumb (in its older sense "unable to speak") and confound. It originally described someone struck silent by confusion or surprise.