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SHOCKING
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation
Example:
the most shocking book of its time
Synonyms:
disgraceful; scandalous; shameful; shocking
Classified under:
Similar:
immoral (deliberately violating accepted principles of right and wrong)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism
Example:
lurid details of the accident
Synonyms:
lurid; shocking
Classified under:
Similar:
sensational (causing intense interest, curiosity, or emotion)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb shock
Context examples:
From this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor which turned us sick.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Most of us need time to adjust to major changes, and that October 27 new moon, which had Uranus opposed to the Sun and new moon in Scorpio to the exact degree, had all the makings of a difficult one bent on exposing hidden information or for sending you a shocking or surprising message.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Charles may say what he pleases, cried Mary to Anne, as soon as he was out of the room, but it would be shocking to have Henrietta marry Charles Hayter; a very bad thing for her, and still worse for me; and therefore it is very much to be wished that Captain Wentworth may soon put him quite out of her head, and I have very little doubt that he has.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
On the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was, we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after my father's death.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in French, I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to make you more comfortable?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I heard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary, and I was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have nothing more to do with him.’
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I remember when I was at Lilliput, the complexion of those diminutive people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and talking upon this subject with a person of learning there, who was an intimate friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother when he looked on me from the ground, than it did upon a nearer view, when I took him up in my hand, and brought him close, which he confessed was at first a very shocking sight.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
But what, said she after a short silence, are your views? or have you none but that of waiting for Mrs. Ferrars's death, which is a melancholy and shocking extremity?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The event was so shocking, that there were moments even when her heart revolted from it as impossible: when she thought it could not be.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
