Dictionary

gobsmackingly en · ADV

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree English gobsmacking Middle English -ly English -ly English gobsmackingly From gobsmacking + -ly.

Meanings

1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang) Astonishingly; amazingly.
   • The AAA company Millie’s suing is run by a crooked mogul played by Taika Watiti, doing a gobsmackingly awful caricature of modern tech-bro arrogance. 2021 August 6, A. A. Dowd, “The Ryan Reynolds action-comedy Free Guy is a Truman Show for the Fortnite age”, in The A.V. Club:
   • 1992, Mark Lewisohn, Root Into Europe, BBC Guide to Comedy Astonishingly blunt, completely oblivious to the fact that his opinions and rudeness might be alien or offensive to others, and gobsmackingly ignorant of any other point of view.
   • “September was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist, absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” said Zeke Hausfather, at the Berkeley Earth climate data project. 2023 October 5, Damian Carrington, “‘Gobsmackingly bananas’: scientists stunned by planet’s record September heat”, in The Guardian:

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