startle

He understands how to keep viewers vigilant, how to shock them and startle them as soon as they think they know where he’s headed.

From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026

Few people who have been on the national stage this long retain an ability to startle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025

The next thing Ms Lees knew, the kangaroo had launched towards her car, which she had slowed to a crawl so as not to startle the animal, and started to attack it.

From BBC ● May 23, 2025

At the same hearing, Talley revealed that Ferguson still had the chair with the bullet hole and kept it in his living room, a fact that seemed to startle the judge.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 22, 2025

Sometimes at night he’d startle us, when we forgot he spent his lonely nights in the latrine.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

More than 60 years on, the scene still startles.

From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2026

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

“They’re a bit of a nuisance, especially if one takes off from a bush next to people and startles them,” Knight said.

From Seattle Times ● May 3, 2024

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

A sound startles me—the scraping of the lock on the brig door.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

The difference also appeared across all 37 bird species examined, including easily startled magpies and pigeons that typically allow people to approach much more closely.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 22, 2026

“I was really startled by it. It just kind of came in this wave, and then it just grew from there.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

Black said he was startled, although not totally surprised.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

"The two US deportees looked startled and kept asking which country is this and where it is," said a source.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

Miss Mortimer was so startled she almost dropped her fork.

From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood

He has always had a way with startling, colorful imagery, sometimes specific and clear, other times enigmatic but moving.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026

The red, as startling as a cymbal clap, strikes the eye, but the impending drama remains out of sight.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026

"I've never heard that before but that was heard again later in the wildfire season. That was startling," he said.

From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2026

The private life of disgraced Silicon Valley startup founder Elizabeth Holmes will soon be aired to the public in a startling new documentary filmed in the 34 days before she went to prison.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

His palms were warm and rough, a startling contrast to his long, agile fingers, the fingers of a scribe or ketubah painter.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros