Astony

//əˈstɒni// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To astound; to paralyse, to stun. obsolete, transitive

    "thenne Brastias sawe his felawe ferd so with al / he smote the duke with a spere that hors & man fell doune / that sawe kyng Claryaunce and retorned vnto Brastias / and eyther smote other soo that hors & man wente to the erthe / and so they lay long astonyed / & their hors knees brast to the hard bone"

Example

More examples

"thenne Brastias sawe his felawe ferd so with al / he smote the duke with a spere that hors & man fell doune / that sawe kyng Claryaunce and retorned vnto Brastias / and eyther smote other soo that hors & man wente to the erthe / and so they lay long astonyed / & their hors knees brast to the hard bone"

Etymology

From Middle English astoneyen, astony, a back-formation from astoneyed, from a- + Old French estoné (“stunned”), the past participle of estoner (“to stun”) + -ed (participial suffix). See also astone, astonish.

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