Why this word is great
ASTONY — [Verb] To astound or stun, often to the point of rendering someone motionless or speechless. From Middle English astoneyen, astony, a back-formation from astoneyed, from the prefix a- + Old French estoné ("stunned"), the past participle of estoner ("to stun"), ultimately from Vulgar Latin *extonāre ("to thunder, stun"). Unlike "astonish" (which suggests a more common, enduring state of wonder) or "stupefy" (which implies a dull, narcotic numbing), to astony is to be struck dumb and still by a sudden, overwhelming force. It is the soldier frozen in the trench by the unnatural silence after the shelling, the lover staring at the empty space where a portrait hung, or the astronomer’s hand falling from the eyepiece upon seeing a galaxy where none should be—a temporary, perfect stasis where the world has just been remade, and the soul has not yet learned how to move within it.