Appalled

How to spell appalled

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce appalled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appalled mean?

1. adjectiveFilled with horror, shock, or strong dismay.

Appalled in a sentence

• The manager was appalled by the state of the accounts.

• Residents felt appalled at the sudden rent increase.

Where does appalled come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from the Old French verb apalir or appallir, which meant 'to grow pale' or 'to make someone turn pale', built on the Latin pallere, meaning 'to be pale'. When English adopted it in the 1300s, the original sense really did concern colour draining from the face, the physical pallor of fear or shock. Over time the literal paleness faded from view and the figurative meaning took over, so that to be appalled came to mean being so dismayed or horrified that one might blanch at the sight. The same Latin pallere root survives in the modern words 'pallid' and 'pallor', both of which still describe an unhealthy paleness. The spelling trap is the double p and double l: the doubled l arrives naturally when the suffix is added, but writers often drop one consonant or the other.

How the word is built

• ap- (to, from Latin ad)
• pall (to grow pale, from Latin pallere)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)