startle

They then measured how the mice responded using a modified auditory startle test.

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2026

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 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

While her decision to stand down as an MSP was obvious and much anticipated, it still has the capacity to startle.

From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2025

Even if he had been too preoccupied to hear the sounds of trucks or voices, Calamity would have, so quick to startle now that her kittens were close.

From "Bone Gap" by Laura Ruby

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

What probably startles beginning bromeliad growers most, even after providing diligent care, is the inevitable decline of the original or mother plant after it flowers.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2023

When finally you see it, however, the pose chosen for the portrait startles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2023

She startles and spins around, just as jumpy as last night.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

"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

I was startled for a moment when I opened my top desk drawer and saw the contents.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026

If I needed to grab Cosmo, I’d raise my hand high to let his one eye warily track me so he wouldn’t get startled.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

She said some birds do not die instantly when shot and instead get startled in the dark and collide with things, but Pellen said that was "not true at all".

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

There was a short, startled silence, broken by everybody at once.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

Given that a robot recently beat Usain Bolt's 100m sprint record, it's not the most startling achievement.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

During Friday’s 9/11 commemorations, it was startling to realize that one-third of the American population today wasn’t born when it happened.

From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026

It’s home to perhaps 4,000 year-round residents, star-struck by night, startling at dawn, surrounded by the largest state park in California, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

But that is by design, said INRIA's Serena Ivaldi, as the robots "have to act in human environments" without startling the people they help.

From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026

The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker