Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Nonplussed |
NonplussedAdjective1. Filled with bewilderment; "at a loss to understand those remarks"; "puzzled that she left without saying goodbye". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "nonplussed" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1588. (references) |
Synonyms: NonplussedSynonyms: at a loss(p) (adj), nonplused (adj), puzzled (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Difficulty | Reduced to straits; hard pressed, sorely pressed; run hard; pinched, put to it, straitened; hard up, hard put to it, hard set; put to one's shifts; puzzled, at a loss; (uncertain); at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill; graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground; stuck fast, set fast; up a tree, at bay, aux abois, driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity, driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall; au bout de son Latin; out of one's depth; thrown out. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Nonplussed |
| Specialty definitions using "nonplussed": Snakes. (references) |
| "Nonplussed" is generally used as a lexical verb (past participle) -- approximately 65.91% of the time. "Nonplussed" is used about 44 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (past participle) | 65.91% | 29 | 64,444 |
| Lexical Verb (past tense) | 25% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Noun (proper) | 6.82% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 2.27% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 44 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
nonplussed | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "nonplussed"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
German | verlegen gemacht. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | zavart (abashed, be disconcerted, bewildered, disturbed, embarrassed, flustered, perplexed, puzzled, self-conscious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 参る (to be annoyed, to be defeated, to be madly in love, to be nonplussed, to call, to collapse, to come, to die, to go, to visit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | まいる (to be annoyed, to be defeated, to be madly in love, to be nonplussed, to call, to collapse, to come, to die, to go, to visit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | onplussednay затруднительный (awkward, baffling, difficult, embarrassing). (various references) zbunjen (abashed, ablush, aghast, befuddled, bewildered, confounded, confused, distraught, embarrassed, loss: at a loss, puzzled, quizzical). (various references) handfallen. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Nonplussed" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: nonplusse, nonpulused. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "nonplussed" (pronounced nÄnplu"st) |
| 4 | -l u" s t | lust. |
| 3 | -u" s t | adjust, antitrust, bused, bussed, bust, Combust, crust, cussed, discussed, disgust, distrust, dust, encrust, entrust, fussed, gust, incrust, just, mistrust, must, readjust, robust, rust, thrust, trust, unjust. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-l-n-n-o-p-s-s-u" | |
-1 letter: nonplused, nonpluses. | |
-2 letters: loudness, nonuples, nounless. | |
-3 letters: dulness, dunness, ensouls, loudens, nelsons, nodules, nonplus, nonuple, nonuses, oldness, pseudos, sendups, spoused, suspend, unposed, upsends. | |
-4 letters: dossel, douses, dulses, ensoul, lesson, lodens, louden, louped, loupen, loupes, loused, louses, nelson, nodule, nonuse, nouses, onuses, opuses, ousels, pluses, pounds, pseudo, pseuds, pulsed, pulses, punned, sendup, sloped, slopes, soleus. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-l-n-n-o-p-s-s-u" | |
+3 letters: pendulousness. | |
+5 letters: pendulousnesses. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4E 6F 6E 70 6C 75 73 73 65 64 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-. --- -. .--. .-.. ..- ... ... . -.. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001110 01101111 01101110 01110000 01101100 01110101 01110011 01110011 01100101 01100100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)N o n p l u s s e d |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004E 006F 006E 0070 006C 0075 0073 0073 0065 0064 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)48818082788785857170 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
