What's the difference between astonish and stun?

Astonish


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To stun; to render senseless, as by a blow.
  • (v. t.) To strike with sudden fear, terror, or wonder; to amaze; to surprise greatly, as with something unaccountable; to confound with some sudden emotion or passion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is my desperate hope that we close out of town.” In the book, God publishes his own 'It Getteth Better' video and clarifies his original writings on homosexuality: I remember dictating these lines to Moses; and afterward looking up to find him staring at me in wide-eyed astonishment, and saying, "Thou do knowest that when the Israelites read this, they're going to lose their fucking shit, right?"
  • (2) To a supporter at the last election like me – someone who spoke alongside Nick Clegg at the curtain-raiser event for the party conference during the height of Labour's onslaught on civil liberties, and was assured privately by two leaders that the party was onside about civil liberties – this breach of trust and denial of principle is astonishing.
  • (3) It's that he habitually abuses his position by lobbying ministers at all; I've heard from former ministers who were astonished by the speed with which their first missive from Charles arrived, opening with the phrase: "It really is appalling".
  • (4) Puskas, possessed of a left foot of astonishing power, and his team colleagues, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor, all found their way to Spain.
  • (5) Results of venous thrombectomies are particularly astonishingly good in phlegmasia coerulea and it is therefore mandatory to transfer all fresh cases of thrombosis of the deep veins of the peelvis and lower extremities to an angiologic center in order to differentiate cases for fibrinolytic therapy, from those which require surgical intervention.
  • (6) FWA chairman Andy Dunn said: "Those members who have been fortunate enough to be working at a match involving Luis Suárez have witnessed an astonishing talent first-hand.
  • (7) Even Corbyn’s fiercest critics have to concede he has achieved something astonishing.
  • (8) Recently released figures from the Veterans Administration on the number of Vietnam veterans who have been granted service connection in their claims for post-traumatic stress disorder appear to be astonishingly low, given the publicity that the media and mental health professionals have placed on this diagnosis in recent years.
  • (9) It is, in fact, quite astonishing to find British housebuilders and planners going along with the design and construction of such decent new homes.
  • (10) Over the past year, they’ve been to five continents and discovered an astonishing world of insect flavour.
  • (11) "The memorable 1961 British Home Championship yielded an astonishing 40 goals from six matches," writes Erik Kennedy.
  • (12) The complication rate was astonishingly low during IUSC: being only 4.3% (2 male patients, one with stricture of the urethra and epididymitis, one with autonomous dysreflexia with bladder overdistension).
  • (13) He added: “In the context of very surprising populist electoral successes in the US it would be astonishing if the BBC didn’t interview her.
  • (14) So how did Vanity Fair decide to illustrate this heartfelt and rather astonishing interview?
  • (15) Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said he would be astonished if the coalition had not enacted a lobbyists' register and a power to recall errant MPs by 2015.
  • (16) At one point, Hodge said she was astonished that the secretary of state had claimed that Stephens had approved Smith's role.
  • (17) Individualism – the assertion of every person’s claim to maximised private freedom and the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires … became the leftwing watchword of the hour.” The result was an astonishing liberation: from millennia of social, gender and sexual control by powerful, mostly elderly men.
  • (18) She is fantastically clever and when she's on about ideas she is astonishing.
  • (19) The kinetic data obtained using lysine-containing model peptides as substrates indicate an astonishing similarity to mammalian lysyloxidase.
  • (20) "We are a struggling small business and I am astonished that banks are allowed to get away with handling their accounts in this way.

Stun


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make senseless or dizzy by violence; to render senseless by a blow, as on the head.
  • (v. t.) To dull or deaden the sensibility of; to overcome; especially, to overpower one's sense of hearing.
  • (v. t.) To astonish; to overpower; to bewilder.
  • (n.) The condition of being stunned.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The dispute is rooted in the recent erosion of many of the freedoms Egyptians won when they rose up against Mubarak in a stunning, 18-day uprising.
  • (2) The brightly lit ice palaces themselves are stunning, inside and out, and the sporting facilities have been rightly praised by almost all the athletes.
  • (3) Impulses sufficiently large to stun adult sheep, with a non-penetrating impact head, were produced from an adapted Hantover pneumatic cattle stunner.
  • (4) Nevertheless between 18% and 20% appear to have done so – a stunning result for the far right.
  • (5) And as for this job, well, not that I have a choice but … fuck it, I quit.” A stunned colleague then told viewers: “All right we apologise for that … we’ll, we’ll be right back.” The station later apologised to viewers on Twitter: KTVA 11 News (@ktva) Viewers, we sincerely apologize for the inappropriate language used by a KTVA reporter on the air tonight.
  • (6) In the ECMO patient, cardiac stun syndrome and electromechanical dissociation can be confused with low circuit volume, pneumothorax, or cardiac tamponade.
  • (7) Alternatively, a loss of collagen tethers or decline in matrix tensile strength can be responsible for regional or global transformations in myocardial architecture and function seen in the reperfused ("stunned") myocardium and in dilated (idiopathic) cardiopathy.
  • (8) The speed of the advance and strength of the weaponry used has stunned the autonomous enclave.
  • (9) Considerable evidence indicates that calcium antagonists administered prior to coronary occlusion attenuate postischemic stunning in the canine model: verapamil, diltiazem, and amlodipine have been shown to restore contractile function to 50-100% of baseline values during the initial hours following relief of ischemia.
  • (10) In models of prolonged ischemia (2 hours) followed by reperfusion, we have not observed a beneficial effect of scavengers on stunned myocardium.
  • (11) The present study tested the hypothesis that a reduction in calcium flux across the sarcolemma or the sarcoplasmic reticulum at the onset of reperfusion could attenuate subsequent mechanical "stunning" (postischemic myocardial dysfunction).
  • (12) Thus myocardial "stunning" is a nonuniform phenomenon with maximal severity in the subendocardium.
  • (13) The Tasmanian writer said he was “stunned” to be in the running for the prestigious UK-based literary prize, which for the first time has been opened to authors of any nationality.
  • (14) The draft released last Monday had been hailed by some church observers and gay rights groups as “a stunning change” in how the Catholic hierarchy talked about gay people.
  • (15) In fact, I'm stunned at how good the place that I am in is.
  • (16) Myocardial "Stunning" is characterized by a reversible post-ischemic contractile dysfunction despite full restoration of blood flow.
  • (17) There's a stunning atmosphere in Wembley tonight, one even the Sheffield Wednesday band can't bugger up.
  • (18) It was similar between dog and rabbit hearts (about 40%) and was not significantly affected by enhanced contractility with calcium, epinephrine, or cardiac cooling, or by depressed contractility with propranolol, decreased coronary perfusion pressure, or stunned myocardium.
  • (19) RBS starts charging financial customers to park their cash Read more The disposal of W&G is proving troublesome and expensive for RBS, which stunned the City last month by admitting it was abandoning its attempt to float the business on the stock market.
  • (20) He tells an amusing story of how exhilarated, if stunned, he was by completing three skeleton runs at Lillehammer.