stupor

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stupor,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin stupor (“numbness, insensibility, dullness, amazement”),^[4][5][6] from stupeō (“to be stunned, be dazed”) and the suffix -or.^[4][6][7] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *stupe- (“hit”), from the root *(s)teu- (“to push, stick, knock, beat”).^[5] Collins dates the English word only to the 17th century.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Two senses appear together in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, from before 1398: loss of feeling in the body, and amazement.^[4][2][6] The Middle English text describes it as a disease of the soul and a blindness of reason: "Stupor is I-clepid a disese of þe soule."^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already joined numbness of the body to stupefaction and wonder of the mind, and English took over both.^[4][2] The sense of simple wonder is now rare.^[4] It survives chiefly in stupor mundi, "wonder of the world", modelled on the post-classical Latin phrase and used of a person of outstanding reputation.^[4][9] Dullness of mind, apathy or torpor is recorded in the OED from 1570,^[4] in Etymonline from the 1670s^[5] and in the Shorter Oxford from the late 17th century,^[9] and it now usually describes a dazed state.^[4][9] Johnson (1755) still defines the word in the bodily sense, as the suspension or lessening of sensibility, with a medical quotation from Arbuthnot.^[10] A technical use for a form of mental illness followed in 1806, in a translation of Pinel, after French stupeur, so used from 1801.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1398 – loss of physical sensation, numbness (later obsolete); also wonder, amazement.^[4][2][6]
• 1570 – mental or spiritual dullness, apathy, torpor, in T. Tymme's translation of A. Marlorat.^[4] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1670s.^[5]
• 1599 – with of, a person who is an object of wonder.^[4]
• 1806 – a form of mental illness marked by extreme apathy or inertia, in D. Davis's translation of P. Pinel.^[4]
• 1845 – stupidity (now obsolete and rare), in Carlyle.^[4]
• 1855 – a period of relative inactivity in a place or sphere, in Disraeli.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A condition of near-unconsciousness or greatly dulled senses: He lay on the bench in a drunken stupor until noon.^[11][9][8]
2. (medicine) A mental condition marked by lack of movement and greatly reduced response to stimulation.^[11][4][9]
3. Mental dullness or torpor; a dazed state of mind.^[8][4][9]
4. A period of little activity or incident in a place or field.^[4]
5. (rare) Wonder or amazement.^[4][9]
6. (rare) A person who inspires wonder, now only in stupor mundi, wonder of the world.^[4][9]

Word family

• stuporous

Related words

• stupefy
• stupefaction
• stupendous
• stupid

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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)
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster