Vocabulary
Startling
English and Urdu gloss, synonyms and antonyms, and example usage from our editorial sentence cache where available.
English meaning
very surprising, astonishing, or remarkable.
Urdu meaning
چونکا دینے والا، وحشت ناک
Example sentences (from Dawn)
Sentences are selected from stored editorial text where your search word appears. If none appear yet, run the admin sentence generator for fuller coverage.
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In some cases, the increases are startling.
Dawn Editorials —
Hotter urban future
— 2026-03-29
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More startling is the fact that 117.4m working-age people mostly women out of 179.6m are engaged in unpaid domestic and care work.
Dawn Editorials —
Labour trends
— 2025-11-27
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The 2023 digital census has shown startling gaps in literacy in rural Sindh, Balochistan and KP.
Dawn Editorials —
Poverty by design
— 2025-08-01
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Civic cooperation: Perhaps the most startling feature of the ACM was the overwhelming support it received from the people.
Dawn Editorials —
The changing winds
— 2025-05-07
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These revelations are startling and need to be substantiated.
Dawn Editorials —
After USAID
— 2025-05-05
Synonyms
surprising, astonishing, amazing, unexpected, unforeseen, staggering, shocking,
Antonyms
predictable, ordinary
Curator example
“he bore a startling likeness to their father”
More vocabulary to explore
About this vocabulary section.
These entries support close reading of Dawn editorials and opinion pieces: short definitions,
Urdu equivalents where we have them, word relations, and—when generated—real lines from the editorial archive
so you can see tone and usage.
Common questions
- Do I need to sign up to use this vocabulary page?
- No. Word pages are open to everyone. You can read meanings in English and Urdu, synonyms and antonyms, and example sentences without creating an account.
- Where do the example sentences come from?
- When available, example sentences are drawn from cached matches in our Dawn editorial corpus so you can see how a word is used in real newsroom-style prose.
- How is this different from a dictionary?
- This section is curated for students preparing for competitive exams and editorial reading. Entries are compact, often include Urdu glosses, and are paired with in-context lines from editorials when we have them.
