amaze

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English amasen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English āmasian (“to stun, stupefy, confound”),^{[2][5][6][7][8]} formed with the prefix ā- and an assumed verb *masian (“to confuse”).^[5][2][9][8] The American Heritage Dictionary calls the prefix intensive, Merriam-Webster perfective.^[5][2] The Old English past participle āmasod gave amased (“stunned, dazed, bewildered”),^[5][10][7] and Etymonline takes the modern verb as a back-formation from that participle.^[11] The OED, revising the entry in 2021, derives the verb from the prefix a- and the base of the noun maze, and notes that in early use it is rare except as a past participle.^[12] The origin of that base is unknown.^[13] Holthausen, the Shorter Oxford and Weekley compare Norwegian masast (“to lose consciousness, fall asleep”) in Norwegian dialect, and Holthausen also Swedish masa (“to be sluggish”);^[14][15][16] Ayto suggests that the word may first have been borrowed from Old Norse.^[17] That noun is itself a shortened form of the same word.^[7][15][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

To stun or stupefy someone; to daze, bewilder or perplex: Old English, first in the Lambeth Psalter's Canticles,^[12] where Þú ámasost þeóda renders Latin obstupefacies gentes, "you will astonish the nations".^[6] Barnhart dates the Old English verb to about 1000 and the Middle English amasen probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[9] The participle amased, stunned or bewildered, and also alarmed or dismayed, is well recorded in Gower's Confessio Amantis (before 1393).^[10][18]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates amased in the sense "stupefied, foolish" to about 1200 and "stunned, bewildered" to the late 14th century.^[11] Hoad notes that the verb was not frequent until the 16th century,^[7] when it acquired its two later senses: to fill with fear or alarm (from about 1518, chiefly poetic later and now obsolete) and to astonish greatly (from about 1533).^[12] Ayto places the modern sense "astonish" at the end of the 16th century and names Shakespeare among its first users: "whose full perfection all the world amazes" (Venus and Adonis, 1592).^[17] The old sense of bewildering survived until 1769.^[12] The noun amaze, formed from the verb, meant bewilderment from about 1425 (Lydgate), fear from 1587 and wonder from 1598, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost;^[12] the OED notes that amaze and a maze are hard to tell apart in manuscripts, which do not clearly divide words.^[12] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as astonishment or confusion, of fear or wonder, quoting Milton's Paradise Regained.^[19] The noun is now poetic or archaic,^[15][20] but it lived on in Scots and in Yorkshire and Wexford dialect for amazement or wonder.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English āmasian, to stun, stupefy, bewilder.^[9][12][6]
• before 1200 – Middle English amasen, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[9]
• before 1393 – amased, stunned, bewildered, dismayed, in Gower.^[10]
• c. 1425 – noun, bewilderment (now obsolete).^[12][15]
• c. 1518 – to fill with fear or alarm (now obsolete).^[12]
• c. 1533 – to astonish greatly.^[12] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1580s.^[11]
• 1578 – reflexive, to bewilder oneself (obsolete by 1678).^[12]
• 1589 – intransitive, to be astounded.^[12]
• 1598 – noun, wonder, astonishment.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fill someone with great surprise or wonder; to astonish: The young pianist amazed the judges with her speed.^[20][2][12]
2. (rare) To be astounded, or to cause astonishment.^[12][2]
3. (obsolete, Old English–1769) To stun, daze or bewilder; to perplex.^[12][2][20]
4. (obsolete, 1518–1917) To fill with fear or panic; to terrify.^[12][2]

Noun

1. (archaic or poetic) Amazement, wonder.^[20][15][12]
2. (obsolete, 1425–1813) Bewilderment, loss of one's wits.^[12][2][15]

Word family

• amazedly
• amazedness
• amazed
• amazement
• amazing
• amazingly
• unamazed
• unamazedly

Related words

• maze

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
15. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
18. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
21. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)