amaze

From Middle English *amasen (“to bewilder, perplex”), from Old English āmasian (“to confuse, astonish”), from ā- (perfective prefix) + *masian (“to confound”), equivalent to a- +‎ maze.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈmeɪz/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪz

amaze (third-person singular simple present amazes, present participle amazing, simple past and past participle amazed)

1. (transitive) To fill with wonder and surprise; to astonish, astound, surprise or perplex. [from 16th c.]

   He was amazed when he found that the girl was a robot.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Matthew 12:23:

     And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?

   • 1759, Oliver Goldsmith, The Present State of Polite Learning

     Spain has long fallen from amazing Europe with her wit, to amusing them with the greatness of her Catholic credulity.

2. (intransitive) To undergo amazement; to be astounded.
   • 1890, Bayard Taylor, Faust: A Tragedy:

     Eye is blinded, ear amazes.

3. (obsolete) To stupefy; to knock unconscious. [13th–17th c.]
4. (obsolete) To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze.
   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], OCLC 837166078; Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis: […], 4th edition, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co. […], 1896, OCLC 19803734:

     a labyrinth to amaze his foes

5. (obsolete) To terrify, to fill with panic. [16th–18th c.]
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Feare”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069, partition 1, section 2, member 3, subsection 5, page 132:

     It [fear] amaſeth many men that are to ſpeake, or ſhevv themſelues in publike aſſemblies, or before ſome great personages, […]

• amazing
• amazement

amaze (uncountable)

1. (now poetic) Amazement, astonishment. [from 16th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     All in amaze he suddenly vp start / With sword in hand, and with the old man went [...].

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:

     Presently, however, as we stood in amaze, gazing at the marvellous sight, and wondering whence the rosy radiance flowed, a dread and beautiful thing happened.

   • 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska 2005, p. 103:

     Shattuck looked at him in amaze.

   • 1985, Lawrence Durrell, Quinx, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 1361:

     She took the proffered cheque and stared at it with puzzled amaze, dazed by her own behaviour.

amaze

1. Alternative form of amize

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 22