[-ING1.] The action of the verb STUN; the state of being stunned.
c. 1475. Partenay, 1230. To hym A gret stonyng was it verily.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 175. The lad had recovered from the immediate stunning occasioned by the injury.
1847. J. Russell, Remin. Yarrow (1894), 296. Having recovered from the stunning, he was able to sit out the service.
b. spec. Exfoliation or scaling away of the surface of stone (see quot. 1843).
1843. Billings, Durham Cath., 15. There is a peculiarity about the stone, called by the workmen ‘stunning,’ which is the peeling off (within a few years), from the effect of hammer and chisel, of a layer varying from one quarter to three eighths of an inch thick.
1884. Blunt, Annot. Bk. Comm. Prayer, 429, note. The deficiencies now existing in the left-hand panel through the stunning of the stone on which they are sculptured.
