taken aback

"It would almost be arrogant not to be taken aback by how successful it turned out to be," she says.

Borisov artfully underplays the progression: He’s taken aback by her feral resistance, amused by her spirit, then really sees her.

But she said that firms had been taken aback by the lowering of the threshold for the payment of National Insurance, and that the pain was "really serious".

As I walked back to my hotel on Saturday night, I was taken aback by the loud bark from the exhaust pipes of a Lamborghini cruising along Vang Vieng’s single main street.

They were later sweetly and emotionally taken aback when announced as new female artist winners.