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Surprise vs Flabbergastation - What's the difference?

surprise | flabbergastation |

As nouns the difference between surprise and flabbergastation

is that surprise is something not expected while flabbergastation is (colloquial) bewildered shock or surprise; the state or condition of being flabbergasted{{reference-book.

As a verb surprise

is to cause (someone) to feel unusually alarmed or delighted.

As an adjective surprise

is unexpected.

surprise

English

Alternative forms

* (l) (qualifier)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Something not expected.
  • * 2013 , Daniel Taylor, Rickie Lambert’s debut goal gives England victory over Scotland'' (in ''The Guardian , 14 August 2013)[http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/aug/14/england-scotland-international-friendly]
    • They had begun brightly but the opening goal was such a blow to their confidence it almost came as a surprise when Walcott, running through the inside-right channel, beat the offside trap and, checking back on to his left foot, turned a low shot beyond Allan McGregor in the Scotland goal.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=September 7, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
    • , title= Moldova 0-5 England , passage=England were graphically illustrating the huge gulf in class between the sides and it was no surprise when Lampard added the second just before the half hour. Steven Gerrard found his Liverpool team-mate Glen Johnson and Lampard arrived in the area with perfect timing to glide a header beyond Namasco.}}
  • (attributive) Unexpected.
  • The feeling that something unexpected has happened.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.
  • (obsolete) A dish covered with a crust of raised pastry, but with no other contents.
    • (King)

    Synonyms

    * unexpected * (feeling) astonishment

    Derived terms

    * take by surprise

    Verb

    (surpris)
  • To cause (someone) to feel unusually alarmed or delighted.
    • It surprises me that I owe twice as much as I thought I did.
  • To do something to (a person) that they are not expecting, as a surprise.
    • He doesn’t know that I’m in the country – I thought I’d turn up at his house and surprise him.
  • To undergo or witness something unexpected.
    • He doesn’t surprise easily.
  • To cause surprise.
  • To attack unexpectedly.
  • To take unawares.

    • Adjective

    (-)
  • Unexpected.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
    • , title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad , chapter=4 citation , passage=“I came down like a wolf on the fold, didn’t I??? Why didn’t I telephone??? Strategy, my dear boy, strategy. This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. …”}} 1000 English basic words ----

    flabbergastation

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • (colloquial) Bewildered shock or surprise; the state or condition of being flabbergasted.{{reference-book
    • , editor = Joseph Wright (Ed.) , year = 1900 , title = The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=90MOAQAAMAAJ&dq=flabbergasting&source=gbs_navlinks_s , pages = 376 , publisher = H. Frowde }}
  • * 1856. Punch, Vol. 31 . The Punch Office. page 240.
    • We scarcely remember to have ever seen any respectable party in a greater state of flabbergastation than the writer of some observations in Mb. Cobden's Russo-Manchesterian organ, the Morning Star, of Thursday, December the fourth.
  • * 1832-1837. Honoré de Balzac. Droll Stories: Volume 2 . Kessinger Publishing. page 65
    • Upon a sign, she takes ahold of two cords of black silk, to which were attached loops, through which she passes her arms, and in the twinkling of an eye is translated by two pulleys from her bed through the ceiling into the room above, and the trap closing as it has opened, left the old duenna in a state of great flabbergastation , when, turning her head, she neither saw robe nor woman, and perceived that the women had been robbed.
  • * 1918. Shaw Desmond. The Soul of Denmark . C. Scribner's Sons. page 96.
    • I can recall my flabbergastation when in the house of a Jutlander of the middle class I heard him holding fluent converse with his children in some heathen dialect...
  • * 1944. Field and Stream: Volume 49. CBS Publications. page 90.
    • Winchester .22 Automatic which we saw demonstrated (to our utter flabbergastation ) in a local hardware store by a visiting Winchester representative.
  • * 1998. Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife: On the Other Side Known Commonly as "The Little Book" . Daniel Quinn, Tom Whalen. Random House Digital.
    • Ignoring the other's utter flabbergastation , Matthews turned and graciously introduced him to me.
  • (archaic, colloquial, humorous) The act of confounding or bewildering.{{reference-book
    • , editor = William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin Eli Smith (Eds.) , year = 1897 , title = The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Dictionary , url = http://books.google.com/books?id=XAJPAAAAYAAJ&dq=The+Century+Dictionary+and+Cyclopedia:+Dictionary&source=gbs_navlinks_s , pages = 2245 , publisher = Century }}

    References

    English words suffixed with -ation