words fail someone

Meaning: (idiomatic)Someone isincapableofdescribingsomething withwords,especiallydue tofear,shock, orsurprise.1857September, “Seeing the World”, inHarper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume XV, number LXXXVIII, New York, N.Y.:Harper & Brothers, publishers, 327 to 335Pearl Street,Franklin Square,page544, column 1:Nature has given me the passion for poesy, but refused me the boon of words and the faculty of expressing my thoughts. I think deeply, but when I wish to speakwords fail me. If I wish to write, it is still worse.1882, Mrs. Oliphant [i.e.,Margaret Oliphant], “Lady Jane”, inGood Words, volume XXIII,→OCLC, chapter VIII (The Decisive Moment),page202:Here he paused, so bewildered by the dignified unconsciousness and serene superiority of the potentate in whose presence he stood thatwords failed him, and he stood and gazed at that immovable countenance with a sort of appalled wonder to think that anything should be so great yet so small, so capable of making himself ridiculous, and yet with power to spoil two lives at his pleasure.2012,Belinda Castles, “Flora: Sydney, 2005”, inHannah & Emil, Crows Nest, N.S.W.:Allen & Unwin,→ISBN,page 9:As she looked through more and more of these sheets, and found that they could be clustered, ordered, she realised with a start that the spaces were gaps in Hannah's memory of language, marking the beginning of herwords failing her. Did she see that for herself? Did she write faster against the spreading of the gaps?2017August 20, “Observer editorial: The Observer view on the attacks in Spain: We must not give into fatalism on terror”, inThe Observer‎[1], London, archived fromthe originalon16 September 2017:Many survivors tried to describe what they felt, butwords failed them. Hard to imagine, too, the emotions of the first responders – the ambulance crews, the medics and the police – faced by ghastly mayhem. It must have felt overwhelming, but they did their jobs and doubtless saved many lives.

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