What's the difference between dazzle and stupefy?

Dazzle


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To overpower with light; to confuse the sight of by brilliance of light.
  • (v. t.) To bewilder or surprise with brilliancy or display of any kind.
  • (v. i.) To be overpoweringly or intensely bright; to excite admiration by brilliancy.
  • (v. i.) To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
  • (n.) A light of dazzling brilliancy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) However, growing accustomed to “this strange atmosphere”, the Observer man became dazzled by Burgess’s “brilliance and charm”.
  • (2) The dazzling Deulofeu was the instigator of the first.
  • (3) Dell'Utri managed the 1994 campaign – a dazzling phantasmagoria of dancing girls under the lights, while he saw to the shadows.
  • (4) In line with his modest and humble public image, Francis exhibits a strong taste for Italian neorealist cinema, which eschewed Hollywood razzle-dazzle and told morally powerful stories set among the working class.
  • (5) Police officers resigned and politicians were embarrassed as the scandal erupted, but Scotland Yard – with dazzling cynicism – has reacted by trying to silence the kind of police whistleblowers who helped to expose the failures of their leaders; and ambitious politicians continue to dine with Rupert Murdoch.
  • (6) The script and characters were brought together with great writing and meticulous research and the abundant oversimplification was entirely forgivable for the dazzling human drama.
  • (7) He talks up the "experience" aspect of Electric Daisy Carnival, from its dazzling barrage of state-of-the-art lighting to its dance troupes whose costumes are pitched midway between harlequin and hooker.
  • (8) However, when it came to the burning question of Trump Jr’s would-be dealings with Russia, the US president acted like an American in Paris who is high on champagne, dazzled by the sights and eager to get to dinner at the Eiffel Tower.
  • (9) As well as enhancing the author's fame and credibility, the meeting helped set Bowie's trajectory for the next few years – a series of dazzling physical and artistic changes that would not slow until the early 1980s.
  • (10) It is in two senses a dazzling work, which leaves the mind's eye scorched into strangeness.
  • (11) For the boy in ragged trousers, who had to struggle right up to the time De Wet removed him from the world of financial responsibility, money was dazzling.
  • (12) Dazzle glare resulting from the accumulation of cystine crystals in ocular tissue may account for glare disability seen in these patients and contribute to their complaints of photophobia.
  • (13) When I was a boy, people thought our technological limit was reached with the dazzling Flying Scotsman's train engine.
  • (14) World Cup fans were dazzled this summer by Howard’s performances in Brazil, which included a record-setting 16 saves in a second-round match the USA nonetheless lost, 2-1 in extra time, to Belgium.
  • (15) It's easy to see Bruckheimer as Hollywood's Simon Cowell , churning out hollow razzle-dazzle for the multiplex masses, most of it based on pre-existing properties.
  • (16) The British Retail Consortium said shops enjoyed a "dazzling" week before Christmas and the best month of sales since January last year, but it believes much of the sales surge was created by bargain hunting.
  • (17) The Bilbao Guggenheim is a treaty port negotiated with the burghers of this rather down-at-heel city, part bullion vault and part glimmering mirage to cow and dazzle the natives.
  • (18) If the argument is that because she is an internationally renowned star, and, therefore, Madonna believes she deserved to be treated differently from other visiting foreigners, it is worth making her aware that Malawi has hosted many international stars, including Chuck Norris, Bono, David James, Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville who have never demanded state attention or decorum despite their equally dazzling stature.
  • (19) If Hollande's Sunday rally was aimed at injecting some dazzle into what critics have called an unexciting campaign, the manifesto launch marked Hollande's return to the careful, number-crunching technocrat who ran the Socialist party for 11 years.
  • (20) He explained to his educated readers how these elaborate, glass-fronted, gas-lit buildings were “perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt” of the street, thereby luring in many locals.

Stupefy


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make stupid; to make dull; to blunt the faculty of perception or understanding in; to deprive of sensibility; to make torpid.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of material mobility.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Between 2002 and 2008, Worboys, who was jailed for life in 2009, carried out more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults using alcohol and drugs to stupefy his victims, said Mr Justice Green at London's high court.
  • (2) The US Congress, its approval rating still near all-time lows , is reinforcing its own record of stupefyingly short-sighted lawmaking with what may be the most harmful piece of economic legislation in America in years: the $1tn 2013 farm bill .
  • (3) Like its predecessors (The Tudors, Spartacus, Camelot etc) the 10-part potboiler is awash with wrecking ball exposition, window-rattling anachronisms and scenes in which heritage hardbodies have shouting backwards sex next to stupefied livestock.
  • (4) It was a ridiculous goal, one that had a stupefying effect on this stadium.
  • (5) Yes, we pound along after prickly DS Gibson as she quietly humiliates stupefied subordinates and draws important red circles around photos with her big Met-issued marker pen.
  • (6) It's debased and stupefied, really, but that's daily politics."
  • (7) He was used and made to look ridiculous in front of those he governs.” Why Trump was invited and then treated so softly left pundits stupefied, especially since Peña Nieto, who is not known for verbal jousting or talking without scripts, missed such a good chance to improve his poor approval rating.
  • (8) Late summer saw a surprising population explosion of wasps, with many wandering around apparently stupefied by gorging on too much honeydew (the sugary excretion of aphids).
  • (9) But I think we should regard it as a moment for opportunity.” Johnson had previously called Trump “ill-informed” and said his comments on Islam showed “a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States”.
  • (10) Richard Pasquier, head of the Jewish umbrella group the Crif, not usually critical of the government, said he was "shocked" and "stupefied" by Fillon's comments.
  • (11) Because everywhere where they love their football, the memory lingers of that stupefying free-kick in Le Tournoi in France in 1997 when he bent the ball, defying every law of football physics as hitherto understood, around the outside of a defensive wall with the outside of his left foot, from 35 yards, past a mute, helpless and utterly immobile Fabien Barthez.
  • (12) Wodehouse wrote that a Briton could easily stupefy himself with food at Simpson’s, and quite cheaply, too.
  • (13) Our pharmaceutical industries produce a cornucopia of prescription drugs – eye-opening, stupefying, mood-swinging, game-changing, anxiety-alleviating, performance-enhancing – currently at a global market-value of more than $300bn.
  • (14) What followed was extraordinary even before we reached those final, stupefying moments.
  • (15) Drawn by Russia’s finest political cartoonist, Sergey Elkin , it is at once a powerful portrayal of the stupefying influence of Kremlin-controlled TV and an indication of why neither increasingly harsh western sanctions nor international allegations of Russian culpability in the destruction of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are likely to damage Vladimir Putin’s soaring popularity at home.
  • (16) Reductive drugs: lowering the intensity of sensations and emotions, in three kinds: a) Releaser drugs, causing removal of inhibitions and production of phantasies; b) Sedation drugs, easing tensions and anxieties; c) Stupefying drugs, blurring all contact with the outer world.
  • (17) There you were, going through life like a stupefied Commie drone, until you got lit up by some smilin’ Wasilla sunshine, and now you can’t get enough.
  • (18) The idea is the mental construct of a powerful lobby, the British navy, its cheerleaders and its suppliers, with their hands on stupefying amounts of public money and an ability to scare politicians into pandering to their interest.
  • (19) Unaccompanied child refugees' suffering on route to Europe laid bare Read more Most of the unaccompanied minors in Catania rarely seem to leave the patch of grass near the station, sitting quietly throughout the stupefying afternoon heat, occasionally washing in the fountain dedicated to the ancient Roman goddess Proserpina.
  • (20) Some news from the sticks: across England and Wales, 41 elections for police commissioners will take place in just over a week, but the buildup to this supposedly watershed moment is stupefyingly quiet.