startle
Pronunciation Verb
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Pronunciation Verb
startle (startles, present participle startling; past and past participle startled)
- (intransitive) To move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start.
- a horse that startles easily
- 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, published 1712, [Act 5, scene 1]:
- Why shrinks the soul / Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
- (transitive) To excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise.
- 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Thomas Basset, […], OCLC 153628242 ↗:
- The supposition, at least, that angels do sometimes assume bodies need not startle us.
- 1896, Joseph Conrad, "An Outcast of the Islands"
- Nothing could startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not complain, she did not rebel.
- (transitive, obsolete) To deter; to cause to deviate.
- French: sursauter
- German: aufschrecken, scheuen
- Italian: scattare, sobbalzare
- Spanish: sobresaltarse, alarmarse, espantarse
- French: surprendre
- German: erschrecken
- Italian: spaventare, sorprendere
- Portuguese: assustar, dar um susto
- Russian: пуга́ть
startle (plural startles)
Translations- Spanish: sobresalto
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003