Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To fill with horror and amazement; dismay greatly.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See
appal .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb obsolete To grow faint; to become weak; to become dismayed or discouraged.
- intransitive verb obsolete To lose flavor or become stale.
- noun poet. Terror; dismay.
- transitive verb obsolete To make pale; to blanch.
- transitive verb obsolete To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce.
- transitive verb 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.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive 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 WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised
- verb strike with disgust or revulsion
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Somtow himself warned that the new opera, inspired by American action movies, might "appall" some of his fellow Thais.
The Wrath of Khon Matthew Guerrieri 2006
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Somtow himself warned that the new opera, inspired by American action movies, might "appall" some of his fellow Thais.
Archive 2006-11-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2006
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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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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.
Under the Maypole 2009
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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?
What Unitarians Know (and Sam Harris Doesn't) Marilynne Robinson 2010
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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.
In the Plex Steven Levy 2011
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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 2009
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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 Terry Curtis Fox 2010
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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.
Lance Mannion: 2009
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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 Terry Curtis Fox 2010
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