astonisher

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English

Etymology

From astonish +‎ -er.

Noun

astonisher (plural astonishers)

  1. Something that astonishes; an astonishing thing or event.
    Synonyms: astonishment, marvel, surprise, wonder, shocker, stunner (colloquial)
    • 1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, London: Bradbury & Evans, , →OCLC, page 156:
      […] the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa […] has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement—the most dangerous and heretical astonisher of all.
    • 1858, Abraham Lincoln, debate with Stephen A. Douglas on 10 July, 1858 in Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, London: J.M. Dent and New York: Dutton, 1907, p. 88,
      It is the first of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history; it is a new wonder of the world;
    • 1889, Mark Twain, chapter 27, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court‎, New York: Charles L. Webster, page 350:
      He [the king pretending to be a peasant] was always frightening me, always breaking out with fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places.
    • 1943, Dorothy Richardson, “Data for a Spanish Publisher”, in Journey to Paradise‎, London: Virago, published 1989, page 139:
      Well, if life were tragedy, it still was life, the ultimate astonisher.
  2. Someone who astonishes.
    • 1675, William Bayly, “The Life of Enoch again Revived”, in A Collection of the Several Wrightings of William Bayly‎, published 1676, page 146:
      […] God, before whom all Nations are as nothing, thou Astonisher of all Flesh, thou art even too Wonderful for me,
    • 1843, Mr. & Mrs. S. C. Hall, Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c.‎, London: Jeremiah How, Volume 3, p. 155, footnote:
      […] when they [the guides for tourists] excite an exclamation of wonder, they never sympathise with it, but treat it as a matter of course that you should be the astonished, and they the astonishers.
    • 1987, Gary Jennings, Spangle, New York: Atheneum, “France,” Chapter 8, p. 867,
      The equestrian director introduced her with almost Florian-florid superlatives-the wonder of her time, the astonisher of even the most jaded connaisseurs du cirque, and so on and so on-but still keeping a mystery Mademoiselle Mystère’s specialty.
  3. (typography, printing, computing, chiefly US) An exclamation mark, the punctuation mark “!”.
    • 1874, The American Observer, New Series, Volume 1, “Rejoinder,” p. 525,
      “ Nothing whatever” ! (the italics are “S. S. C.’s,” the “astonisher” is mine.)
    • 1947, Stewart Holbrook, The Story of American Railroads, American Legacy Press, 1981, Chapter 39, p. 443,
      More often than not these prophets belong to the oh-the-wonder-of-it-all school, who point to the sky as the new and sole artery of travel and transportation and marvel, in complete awe—which they indicate by running over with astonishers!—at the thought of monstrous planes hauling the freight and passengers of the nation, even of the world.
    • 1984, Richard Hauer Costa, “The Grisly Graphics of Malcolm Lowry” in Gordon Bowker and Paul Tiessen (eds.), Proceedings of the London Conference on Malcolm Lowry, Goldsmith’s College, University of London and The Malcolm Lowry Review, Wilfrid Laurier University, p. 100,
      An ad for a boxing match can symbolize the uncommunicable, with its curious shape-of-the-type configurations—¡BOX!, with the ‘astonisher’ written upside down before the word and right side up after.
  4. (typography, journalism, chiefly US) A short line of smaller type above (or sometimes below) the main headline of an article, usually placed flush-left.[1]
    Synonyms: kicker, overline, read-in, whiplash
  5. (journalism) A headline or lead (introductory paragraph) designed to capture attention through a surprising statement.[2]
    Synonyms: cartridge lead, punch lead, shocker lead
    • 1969, Shandy Hill, chapter 17, in Dear Sir: You Cur‎, Philadelphia: Whitmore Publishing, page 119:
      He reveled in socking the reader right in the eye with an “astonisher.”

References

  1. ^ Albert A. Sutton, Design and Makeup of the Newspaper, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948; Charles M. Garven, The Student Journalist and Editing, New York: R. Rosen Press, 1968; Julian Adams, Press Time, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985.
  2. ^ Edward Jay Friedlander, Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines, New York: Longman, 2000; William Wray Carney, In the News: The Practice of Media Relations in Canada, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2008.

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