speechless
If you’re speechless, you can’t talk, usually because something surprising and crazy happened. You might be rendered speechless if you win the lottery or find a whale on your front lawn.
When you’re speechless, you’re at a loss for words. For example, people often say things like "I was speechless when I received the news about my brother!" or "The music left me speechless!" It’s an exaggeration. People use speechless in these cases to show how stunned or moved they were, even though they were probably still capable of speech. "I'm speechless" often really means "I'm shocked!"
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temporarily incapable of speaking
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Vocabulary lists containing speechless
The suffix -less, meaning "without," is added to nouns and verbs to form adjectives. For example, a hopeless situation is a situation without hope. Learn these words that use the suffix less.
You don't have to be a mime or a librarian to appreciate these words related to people, places, and things that are quiet. For more synonym lists, explore our Say What You Mean resources.
Edge: Level C, Volume 2, Unit 5, Cluster 1. Here are links to the other clusters within Unit 5: "Say It with Flowers" and "The Journey", "Just Lather, That's All" and "The Woman Who Was Death", "Be-ers and Doers" and "My Moment of Truth"