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STARTLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
So remarkably different or sudden as to cause momentary shock or alarm
Example:
startling earthquake shocks
Classified under:
Similar:
surprising (causing surprise or wonder or amazement)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb startle
Context examples:
There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Holmes had a still more startling surprise for us, however, for, after accompanying us down to the station and seeing us into our carriage, he calmly announced that he had no intention of leaving Woking.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yet to him, used as he was to a life of such quiet that the failure of a brewing or the altering of an anthem had seemed to be of the deepest import, the quick changing play of the lights and shadows of life was strangely startling and interesting.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
What is startling about the results is that we were able to associate for the first time the variations in solar wind and the response in the stratosphere - and that the response to these variations is so quick for such a large area, said JPL's Glenn Orton, part of the observing team.
(Jupiter's Atmosphere Heats up under Solar Wind, NASA)
Earlier observations of this area with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory revealed a startling concentration of young stellar objects – protostars that have just begun to heat their stellar nurseries, causing them to glow brightly in infrared light.
(Stellar Embryos in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy Contain Surprisingly Complex Organic Molecules, National Radio Astronomy Observatory)
The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Conversely, it may have been that the startling new moon revealed that you needed to help a friend, sweetheart, or child.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
His manias make a startling combination.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
“That is the same drug that I was always bringing him,” said Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise boiled over.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
