Aghast

//əˈɡæst// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Terrified; struck with amazement; showing signs of terror or horror.

    "I was aghast when the incident unfolded in front of me."

Adjective
  1. 1
    struck with fear, dread, or consternation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
appalledafraidagapeagogall agogamazed

Example

More examples

"I'm aghast at the lack of manners, common sense and so on and so forth on the net."

Etymology

From Middle English agast, agasted, past participle of agasten (“to terrify”), from Old English a- (compare with Gothic 𐌿𐍃- (us-), German er-, originally meaning "out") + gæstan (“to terrify, torment”): compare Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (usgaisjan, “to terrify”, literally “to fix, to root to the spot with terror”); akin to Latin haerere (“to stick fast, cling”). By surface analysis, a- + ghast/gast. See gaze.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.