Stunning

How to spell stunning

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stunning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stunning mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely impressive, beautiful, or attractive.
2. adjectiveSo surprising or remarkable that it leaves you astonished.

Stunning in a sentence

• The renovated hotel lobby looked absolutely stunning.

• The team pulled off a stunning comeback in the final minutes.

• She wore a stunning green dress to the awards dinner.

• The report revealed a stunning lack of basic safety checks.

Where does stunning come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from the verb 'stun', which English took from the Old French estoner, meaning 'to daze', 'to astound', or 'to strike senseless with a blow'. That French verb traces back to a Latin idea reconstructed as ex- ('out') combined with tonare ('to thunder'), so the deepest sense is being struck as if by a thunderclap. The same thunderous root sits inside relatives such as 'astonish', 'astound', and even 'detonate', all sharing the image of a sudden, overwhelming shock. By the 1300s 'stun' meant to knock someone senseless or daze them, and the present participle 'stunning' followed naturally. Over time the figurative meaning won out, so that by the early nineteenth century 'stunning' came to praise anything so impressive that it leaves you metaphorically thunderstruck. The spelling trap is the doubled n: because 'stun' ends in a single n after a short stressed vowel, the consonant doubles before -ing, giving stun + n + ing.

How the word is built

• stun (from Old French estoner: to daze, astound)
• -n- (doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)