/ English Dictionary

APPAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: appalled    , appalling   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised

Example:

The news of the executions horrified us

Synonyms:

alarm; appal; appall; dismay; horrify

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "appal" is one way to...):

affright; fright; frighten; scare (cause fear in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "appal"):

shock (strike with horror or terror)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will appal him

Sense 2

Meaning:

Strike with disgust or revulsion

Example:

The scandalous behavior of this married woman shocked her friends

Synonyms:

appal; appall; offend; outrage; scandalise; scandalize; shock

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "appal" is one way to...):

churn up; disgust; nauseate; revolt; sicken (cause aversion in; offend the moral sense of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The bad news will appal him

The performance is likely to appal Sue

Credits

 Context examples: 

She turned the page and her head at the same time, pointing to the sum which would have been bad enough without the fifty, but which was appalling to her with that added.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from this desolate and appalling landscape.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They were appalled by inaction and by the feel of something terrible impending.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Till midnight, she supposed it would be in vain to watch; but then, when the clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"What did you do?" Ruth demanded breathlessly, listening, like any Desdemona, appalled and fascinated.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The callousness of these men, to whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other men, was appalling.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE