startle

“Sudden explosive noise, concussive blasts, and bright flashes have the potential to startle young birds, creating unnecessary risk during a critical period of development.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026

Percussion instruments—including a whistle and slap-stick—interrupt and startle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

It triggers an automatic "startle response" to any loud noise.

From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026

But when she sees another dog, everything changes: she snarls, barks loud enough to startle a city block, and lunges with so much force it takes all my strength to hold her back.

From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2025

She walked softly so she wouldn’t startle him.

From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn

I am not sure what startles more—that the feat was achieved at all or that it was Mr. Koolhaas’s firm that pulled it off.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026

Whether seeing the fear in combatants and civilians alike or observing how societal ills followed young servicemembers to the front, Lagoze startles in his prose just as he did in his 2019 documentary, “Combat Obscura.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2023

The sight of them visibly startles people who have not thought about them for years.

From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2022

When something startles the flightless birds, they can be seen sprinting around the edges of their enclosures, flailing their long necks around.

From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2022

He’s spoken so little that his voice startles me.

From "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration had been startled when Trudeau’s government discreetly asked British intelligence chiefs to start discussing how they might band together if the U.S. left Five Eyes, the U.S.-led intelligence-sharing alliance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026

A man was startled to find a black bear in the front seat of a pickup truck in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026

The initial announcement of SpaceX’s bond sale had startled some investors, some of whom sold their shares.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026

He gleefully brought the startled players together with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, an uptown salsa and jazz band, for concerts at Lincoln Center and Washington Heights.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026

She seems startled to see me coming out of Naomi's house.

From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan

The bat fell onto a table at the Yellow Deli in Vista, startling patrons.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026

Bill Nguyen, a Silicon Valley veteran who recently founded an AI voice startup called Olive, used a startling 774 billion tokens in the last month and a half, mostly for his personal use, he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

The startling revelations that have emerged since September, when the Madlanga Commission began, have left people wondering how such things were allowed to happen.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

The superior returns of what Hartnett calls the “red, white and boom,” compared with Britain, is all the more startling considering that nearly all of that came in the past century and a half.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 3, 2026

Without warning, the sound had brought startling vision to his mind.

From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver