stun
/stʌn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/stʊn/
stun verb: to incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness.
Verb
stun (third-person singular simple present stuns, present participle stunning, simple past and past participle stunned)
- To incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness.
- Bill tried to stun the snake by striking it on the head.
- In many European countries cattle have to be stunned before slaughtering.
- Synonyms:
- daze
- To shock or surprise.
- The celebrity was stunned to find herself confronted with unfounded allegations on the front page of a newspaper.
- He stood there stunned, looking at the beautiful, breath-taking sunrise.
- To hit the cue ball so that it slides without topspin or backspin (and with or without sidespin) and continues at a natural angle after contact with the object ball
- To enter a stunned state.
- The monsters stun when you jump on them.
- To confiscate (an unguarded rifle, magazine, piece of equipment, etc.) from an unsuspecting soldier as punishment for neglect.
Noun
stun (countable and uncountable, plural stuns)
- The condition of being stunned.
- That which stuns; a shock; a stupefying blow.
- A person who lacks intelligence.
- The effect on the cue ball where the ball is hit without topspin, backspin or sidespin.
- Williams will need a lot of stun to avoid going in the middle pocket
- A low-range setting for an energy weapon that will stun its target but not injure or kill it.
- Captain James Kirk: "Set your phaser on one quarter. I'll leave mine on stun."1966 September 8, George Clayton Johnson, The Man Trap (Star Trek), season 1, episode 1
stun meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
stun in Tamil
- அதிர்ச்சியூட்டு, திகைப்பூட்டு
stun in Urdu
- حواس باختہ کرنا
stun in Bengali
- হতবাক করা, অচেতন করা
stun in Malayalam
- to stun
- തരിപ്പിക്കുക tarippikkuka
More languagesFewer languages
- stun in Kannada
- ಮಯ್ಮರೆಸು, ಬೆರಗುಗೊಳಿಸು, ಬೇಳುವೆಗೊಳಿಸು, ಜ್ಞಾನತಪ್ಪಿಸು
Examples of stun in a sentence
- The power of China's booming economy continues to stun the world.
- She was stunned by the unexpected news.
- The blow to the head left him stunned.
Synonyms of stun
Forms of stun
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | stuns |
| present participle | stunning |
| past participle | stunned |
| past | stunned |
| alternative Devon | stin |
| Noun | |
| plural | stuns |
Origin of stun
Inherited from Middle English stonen, stone (“to astonish, stun, numb”, also stoneyen), probably either directly or indirectly from Anglo-Norman estoner (“to stun, astonish”), from Late Latin *stunāre, from Frankish *stunōn (“to thunder, crash”) or perhaps from an unattested Latin *extonāre (“to thunder out, make a thunderous sound”), from tonāre ("to thunder"; compare Latin attonāre). An alternative etymology derives stonen from Old English stunian (“to smash, thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *stunōn. See also astonish, astound. Compare Swedish stöna (“to moan, groan”), Danish stønne (“to moan, groan”), Icelandic stynja (“to moan”), Occitan estonar (“to surprise”), and French étonner (“to surprise”), and more distantly, Dutch steunen (“to groan; support”), German stöhnen (“to groan, moan”), German staunen (“to be astonished, be amazed, marvel at”), and Russian стонать (stonatʹ), стена́ть (stenátʹ, “to moan, groan”).
Words formed from stun
Phrases with stun
Words that rhyme with stun
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- rerun
- nun
- shun
- 'un
- Gunn
- jump the gun
- none
- outrun
- overdone
- begun
- dun
- fun
- hon
- pun
- speedrun
- thon
- undone
- unspun
- verdun
- winter sun
- 1
- 101
- 26+6=1
- cun
- dun dun dun
- everyone
- hard-won
- have one's mind about one
- hot cross bun
- marble run
- misdone
- mun
- Munn
- old one
- one hundred and one
- one thousand and one
- organ gun
- outdone
- outgun
- over and done
- quaker gun
- redone
- respun
- rewon
- snatch and run
- spun
- steam gun
- temperature gun
Questions about stun
- What does stun mean?
- Stun means to incapacitate; especially by inducing disorientation or unconsciousness.
- What is stun in Tamil?
- Stun in Tamil is அதிர்ச்சியூட்டு, திகைப்பூட்டு. See Stun meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is stun?
- Stun can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce stun?
- Stun is pronounced /stʌn/.
- What is the past tense of stun?
- The past tense of stun is stunned.
Words near stun in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stun (page history and authors); stun (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stun (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stun (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); തരിപ്പിക്കുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); stun (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-stun.wav.
Cite this entry: “stun.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stun. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.