Word.ws English Dictionary

ontological shock

ontological shock noun: the state of being forced to question one's worldview.

Noun

ontological shock (countable and uncountable, plural ontological shocks)

  1. The state of being forced to question one's worldview.
    • The discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence would trigger widespread ontological shock.
    • Abductees also experience what I have called 'ontological shock' as the reality of their encounters sinks in.1994, John E. Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens

Forms of ontological shock

pluralontological shocks

Questions about ontological shock

What does ontological shock mean?
Ontological shock means the state of being forced to question one's worldview.
What part of speech is ontological shock?
Ontological shock is a noun.
What is the plural of ontological shock?
The plural of ontological shock is ontological shocks.

Words near ontological shock in the dictionary

  1. ontological
  2. ontological argument
  3. ontological arguments
  4. ontological proof
  5. ontological proofs
  6. ontological shock
  7. ontological shocks
  8. ontologically
  9. ontologies
  10. ontologise
  11. ontologised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ontological shock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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