aghast

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The Word of the Day for October 18 is: 

aghast   \uh-GAST\   adjective
        : struck with terror, amazement, or horror : shocked

Example sentence:
          In an effort to impress his date, Adam ordered the most expensive 
items on the menu, then was aghast when the bill arrived.

Did you know?
          If you are aghast, you might look like you’ve just seen a ghost, or 
something similarly shocking. “Aghast” traces back to a Middle English verb, 
“gasten,” meaning “to frighten.” “Gasten” (which also gave us “ghastly,” 
meaning “terrible or frightening”) comes from “gast,” a Middle English spelling 
of the word “ghost.” “Gast” also came to be used in English as a verb meaning 
“to scare.” That verb is now obsolete, but its spirit lives on in words spoken 
by the character Edmund in Shakespeare’s _King Lear_: “gasted by the noise I 
made, full suddenly he fled.”





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