Word.ws English Dictionary

startlement

startlement noun: an instance of being startled; surprise.

Noun

startlement (plural startlements)

  1. An instance of being startled; surprise.
    • There is no pursing up and general startlement—the thing of all others I dread.1889, Constance Macewen, A Cavalier's Ladye: A Romance of the Isle of Wight in the Seventeenth Century, page 338
    • Whether by means large or small, noticed or almost imperceptible, poetry's startlements displace the existing self with a changed one.2015, Jane Hirshfield, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World

Forms of startlement

pluralstartlements

Origin of startlement

From startle + -ment.

Questions about startlement

What does startlement mean?
Startlement means an instance of being startled; surprise.
What part of speech is startlement?
Startlement is a noun.
What is the plural of startlement?
The plural of startlement is startlements.

Words near startlement in the dictionary

  1. startle reflex
  2. startle reflexes
  3. startle up
  4. startled
  5. startledly
  6. startlement
  7. startlements
  8. startler
  9. startlers
  10. startles
  11. startline

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: startlement (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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Cite this entry: “startlement.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/startlement. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.