different between stun vs benumb

English

Etymology

From Middle English stunien, stonien, stounien, from Old English stunian (“to crash, make a loud sound, resound, roar, strike with a loud sound, dash, impinge, knock, confound, astonish, stupefy”), from Proto-Germanic *stun?n?, *stunjan? (“to sound, crash, bang, groan”), from Proto-Germanic *stenan? (“to moan, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tona-, *(s)tena- (“to thunder, roar, groan”) (compare thunder). Cognate with Middle Low German stonen (“to groan”), Middle High German stunen, stunden (“to drive, push, knock, strike”), Swedish stöna (“to moan, groan”), Icelandic stynja (“to moan”). Related also to Dutch steunen (“to groan; support”), German stöhnen (“to groan, moan”), German staunen (“to be astonished, be amazed, marvel at”), Russian ??????? (stonat?), ???????? (stenát?, “to moan, groan”). See also Occitan estonar, Old French estoner, English astonish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?n/
• Rhymes: -?n

Verb

stun (third-person singular simple present stuns, present participle stunning, simple past and past participle stunned)

1. (transitive) To incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness.

   Bill tried to stun the snake by striking it on the head.

   In many European countries cattle have to be stunned before slaughtering.

2. (transitive) To shock or surprise.

   The celebrity was stunned to find herself confronted with unfounded allegiations on the front page of a newspaper.

   He stood there stunned, looking at the beautiful, breath-taking sunrise.

3. (snooker, billiards) To hit the cue ball so that it slides without topspin or backspin (and with or without sidespin) and continues at a natural angle after contact with the object ball

Translations

Noun

stun (countable and uncountable, plural stuns)

1. The condition of being stunned.
2. That which stuns; a shock; a stupefying blow.
3. (Newfoundland) A person who lacks intelligence.
4. (billiard, snooker, pool) The effect on the cue ball where the ball is hit without topspin, backspin or sidespin.

Translations

Anagrams

• NUTS, Unst, nuts, tsun, tuns

English

Etymology

be- +? numb

Verb

benumb (third-person singular simple present benumbs, present participle benumbing, simple past and past participle benumbed)

1. (transitive) To make numb, as by cold or anesthetic.
   • 1583, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, London: John Daye, Book 4, p. 233,^[1]

     […] the sayd Phillip […] in the same his pilgrimage was stricken with such colde, that he fell into a palsey, and was benumbed of the right side of his body.

   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, p. 344,^[2]

     […] the Cold was insufferable; nor indeed was it more painful than it was surprising, to come but ten Days before out of the old Castile where the Weather was not only warm but very hot, and immediately to feel a Wind from the Pyrenean Mountains, so very keen, so severely cold, as to be intollerable, and to endanger benumbing and perishing of our Fingers and Toes.

   • 1847, Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, Chapter 2,^[3]

     ‘My hands are so benumbed with the cold that I can scarcely handle my knife and fork.’

2. (transitive, figuratively) To deaden, dull (the mind, faculties, etc.).
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 2,^[4]

     […] If this law

     Of nature be corrupted through affection,

     And that great minds, of partial indulgence

     To their benumbed wills, resist the same,

     There is a law in each well-order’d nation

     To curb those raging appetites that are

     Most disobedient and refractory.

   • 1741, Samuel Richardson, Pamela, London: C. Rivington & J. Osborn, Volume 1, Letter 11, p. 18,^[5]

     I struggled, and trembled, and was so benumb’d with Terror, that I sunk down, not in a Fit, and yet not myself […]

   • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book 2, Chapter 17,^[6]

     Sorrowful isolation had benumbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward was continually slipping away from her.

   • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, “Hermaphroditus,” p. 483,^[7]

     Five nights a week, six hours a day, for the next four months—and, fortunately, never again—I made my living by exhibiting the peculiar way I am formed. The Clinic had prepared me for it, benumbing my sense of shame, and besides, I was desperate for money.

Derived terms

Translations