We explain what it means to be stunned, the origin of the term, its different meanings and examples in sentences.
What is it to be stunned?
The word overwhelmed has, in general terms, two very different meanings:
- Annihilate it means reducing something to nothing, that is, diminishing, lowering, and figuratively, defeating or humiliating.
- stunned It is also used as a synonym for surprised, overwhelmed, bewildered or overwhelmed.
Both meanings are valid in Spanish, although the second is much more common than the first.
The word anonadar comes from the union in Romance languages of the words No Y any, to describe something insignificant, a “nothing”, together with the prefix a- (from the Latin ad-, which means “towards”). Thus, overwhelm would mean "push towards nothing" or "reduce to nothing", where the original meaning of overwhelmed comes from: dimmed, reduced, diminished.
This sense allows two uses figurative either metaphorical: to be embarrassed because circumstances diminished us, either because someone subdued us or because we are very overwhelmed, very shocked by something.
That is why today we use this word as more or less synonymous with surprised: a stunned person is shocked, impressed, and does not know very well how to react to something, without necessarily being something bad or something good. For example:
- The news of Braulio's death left me stunned.
- At the end of the debate, the opposition politician was stunned.
- The complexity of the problem has us all stunned.
- Dont let you annihilate for the negative comments.
Follow with: Burden
References
- "Anonadar" in the Dictionary of the Language of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- "Etymology of Anonadar" in the Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary.
- "Stunning" in Wordreference.