words fail someone

Phrase

words fail someone

1. (idiomatic) Someone is incapable of describing something with words, especially due to fear, shock, or surprise.
   • Nature has given me the passion for poesy, but refused me the boon of words and the faculty of expressing my thoughts. I think deeply, but when I wish to speak words fail me. If I wish to write, it is still worse.1857 September, “Seeing the World”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume XV, number LXXXVIII, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, 327 to 335 Pearl Street, Franklin Square, page 544...
   • Here he paused, so bewildered by the dignified unconsciousness and serene superiority of the potentate in whose presence he stood that words failed him, and he stood and gazed at that immovable countenance with a sort of appalled wonder to think that anything should be so great yet so small, so...1882, Mrs. Oliphant [i.e., Margaret Oliphant], “Lady Jane”, in Good Words, volume XXIII, →OCLC, chapter VIII (The Decisive Moment), page 202