startle

Technology was by itself producing startling images, from the assembly line to methods of warfare.

The fights and chases are semi-effective, but there’s such a startling lack of cleverness that it’s as if the filmmakers took “Idiocracy” as a guide rather than a warning.

That big-labor bosses favor Democratic candidates isn’t news, but some unionized workers might be interested—and startled—to learn how much of their dues money is going to politics.

In encounters years ago, a startled bear may have struck a human in the face before fleeing but now "they charge at you from about 10 metres and then leap at you".

But Hindemith’s “Sancta Susanna,” with its startling love affair between a nun and her maid servant, titillated German audiences at the start of the roaring twenties, and still can.