colloq. Also 8 flaba-, 9 flaber-. [First mentioned in 1772 as a new piece of fashionable slang; possibly of dialectal origin; Moor, 1823, records it as a Suffolk word, and Jamieson, Suppl., 1825, has flabrigast to gasconade, flabrigastit worn out with exertion, as used in Perthshire. The formation is unknown; it is plausibly conjectured that the word is an arbitrary invention suggested by FLABBY or FLAP and AGHAST.]
trans. To put (a person) in such confusion that he does not for the moment know what to do or say; to astonish utterly, to confound.
1772. Ann. Reg., II. 191, On New Words. Now we are flabbergasted and bored from morning to night.
1801. Mar. Edgeworth, Angelina, iv. (1832), 77. They made such a bustle and noise, they quite flabbergasted me, so maany on them in this small room.
1840. Disraeli, Corr. w. Sister, 15 July (1886), 158. My facts flabbergasted him, as well as Bowring’s champion, Hume, who was ludicrously floored.
1878. Mozley, Ess. Hist. & Theol., I. 89. It perfectly flabbergasted the Commons.
Hence Flabbergastation, the action of flabbergasting; the state of being flabbergasted.
1856. Punch, XXXI. 13 Dec., 240/1. We scarcely remember to have ever seen any respectable party in a greater state of flabbergastation.
