What's the origin of Gobsmacked?

Question

I've looked it up and all I can find is that it's a variation of Flabbergasted, but surely that can't be right, can it?

Answer 1

everyone else has a better answer than me but i reckon i'm right. When really astonished, you drop your jaw and your mouth (gob) opens. When really really astonished you follow that by raising your hand, open palm inwards, to your mouth. When astonishingly astonished, you do that quickly. That is, you smack yourself in the gob. Gobsmacked.

Answer 2

Well, one day someone smacked one of those amazingly delicious Gobstoppers and it was flabbergasted that a candy of its status could be smacked and smashed.

Just kidding. Here is a real answer:
It’s a fairly recent British slang term: the first recorded use is only in the eighties, though verbal use must surely go back further. The usual form is gobsmacked, though gobstruck is also found. It’s a combination of gob, mouth, and smacked. It means “utterly astonished, astounded”. It’s much stronger than just being surprised; it’s used for something that leaves you speechless, or otherwise stops you dead in your tracks. It suggests that something is as surprising as being suddenly hit in the face. It comes from northern dialect, most probably popularised through television programmes set in Liverpool, where it was common. It’s an obvious derivation of an existing term, since gob, originally from Scotland and the north of England, has been a dialect and slang term for the mouth for four hundred years (often in insulting phrases like “shut your gob!” to tell somebody to be quiet). It possibly goes back to the Scottish Gaelic word meaning a beak or a mouth, which has also bequeathed us the verb to gob, meaning to spit. Another form of the word is gab, from which we get gift of the gab.

Answer 3

Surely the meaning of this word comes from the speechless stupefaction one experiences for a second or two when inexplicably smacked in the gob (or cake-'ole).

Perhaps this is too simplistic an explanation and it will be found to be another nautical term from the busy waters between Jutland and Estonia. My knowledge of the many languages which must merge in the seaports of the Baltic Sea is sketchy, to say the least, so I must leave it to smarter philologists to discover the derivation.

Answer 4

I think owlwings had the right explanation. "Gob" is a word for mouth (just ask a speaker of British English!). So if you're gobsmacked, you have the same jaw-dropped expression that you would have if someone smacked you in the mouth.

Answer 5

It comes from the original 'smack god be', you see this is the version the very first English speakers used, it meant you mustn't talk or you'll be smacked by god! It evolved over a period of time into 'smack dog be', then 'makes bog cd' to eventually become the term we know today as 'GOBSMACKED'.

Sorry, Fairy Rie, I didn't realise you weren't English, that's quite odd considering you're one of my sisters and I'm English, hmmm, which country did Mum and Dad find you in then?

Answer 6

gobsmacked dates from the 18th century it refers to the shock of being hit in the mouth and then goes on to mean the gesture of raising ones hand to ones mouth in suprise.

Answer 7

if ye be remembering fairy lass the real pirate origin of codswallop.....well tis the same i tells e. twas another game we played whilst filled to the brim with grog..(hence the name groggy incidentally)...ya catches yerself a big old gob bout the same size as a cod..and ye sneaks up behind yer shipmate...and ya smacks him!right in the kisser.....and ya shouts"yaaar gobsmacked!"

Answer 8

u win im gobsmacked

Answer 9

It means you can't really believe it,you maybe know it's true but it is so incredible you are astounded and lost for words

Answer 10

For me, it was when I told my brother that his girlfriend was crap in bed.

At least I think that's why he hit me.

"most probably popularised through television programmes set in Liverpool" - blame it on Brookside!