astounding

• Rhymes: -aʊndɪŋ

astounding

1. present participle of astound

astounding (comparative more astounding, superlative most astounding)

1. That astounds or astound.

   astounding success; an astounding spectacle

   • 1590, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Prologue,

     […] you shall heare the Scythian Tamburlaine:

     Threatning the world with high astounding tearms

     And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword

   • 1785, Henry Boyd (translator), A Translation of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri, in English Verse, Dublin, Volume 1, Canto 7, Stanza 18, p. 285,

     Wasted in darkness down the pitchy wave,

     We saw the STYGIAN pool her borders lave,

     Fed by th’ astounding cataract on high.

   • 1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Chapter 3,

     Signor Jupe […] was also to exhibit ‘his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country […] ’

   • 1930, Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, New York: Knopf, Chapter 13,

     “This is going to be the most astounding thing you’ve ever heard of, sir, and I say that knowing that a man of your caliber in your profession must have known some astounding things in his time.”

• astoundingly
• astoundingness

• amazing, extraordinary, fantastic, incredible, marvelous, miraculous, phenomenal, remarkable, unbelievable

• See Thesaurus:surprising