Stupefying describes something so extreme that it stops your mind from working properly for a moment. It comes from the verb 'stupefy', which means to make someone unable to think clearly. There are two directions it goes in, and they feel very different. The first is shock: news, a price, a mistake, a piece of stupidity so big that you just stare. 'A stupefying amount of money.' 'The stupefying news that he had already left.' Here it is close to 'shocking' or 'astonishing', but with the extra idea that your brain has gone blank rather than gone fast. The second direction is dullness: something so boring, so repetitive, or so tiring that it flattens your mind. 'Stupefying paperwork.' 'The stupefying heat.' Here it means the opposite kind of thing, but the effect on the person is the same — you cannot think. That is the thread joining the two: whatever the cause, the person ends up stupid for a moment. It is a written word more than a spoken one. You will meet it in newspapers, essays, and reviews; a friend telling you a story would say 'unbelievable' or 'so boring'. It often sits right in front of a noun (stupefying incompetence, stupefying detail), and writers like it because it sounds a little grand and a little angry at the same time. Also worth knowing: in older stories and in medical writing, 'stupefy' can be literal — a drug that stupefies someone knocks them into a state where they cannot think or move properly. The everyday adjective grew out of that literal meaning.

令人目瞪口呆的；令人麻木的、無聊到頭腦一片空白的