ahurissant

[Fontleroi]

I find no listing for 'ahurissant' on Wikipedia. From one context in which I find it, it seems to correspond to something like 'fantastic' or 'astounding'. Can anyone give me a better translation, or more information as to where this word comes from?

 

[atcheque]

Bonjour,

What is your context? Sentence?
ahurissant - traduction - Dictionnaire Français-Anglais WordReference.com

 

[JClaudeK]

I would not say 'fantastic'.
'ahurissant' has mostly a pejorative meaning.
"stupifying / disconcerting" are OK.

 

[Fontleroi]

atcheque, I saw the expression in passing, but then lost it and could not find it again, but thanks for asking.

jclaudek, the pejorative shading makes sense, so thank you.

 

[Myrtille Extraordinaire]

Bonsoir. Can the adjective "ahurissant" be used to mean "staggering / mind-blowing" either in a good sense or a bad sense?

 

[petit1]

The sense can be either good or bad but there is always the idea of extreme surprise.

 

[joelooc]

to me ahurissant looks like a perfect translation of the trendy awesome with its positive and negative connotations

 

[Chimel]

I can agree, but isn't it so that the meaning "by default" (without more context) of awesome is positive and is rather negative for ahurissant?

I mean: you cannot just translate an awesome movie by un film ahurissant (it would be: génial, formidable, terrible...).

On the other hand, if I hear il a eu une réaction ahurissante, without any more information, my first reaction would be that the speaker is not very pleased with the reaction of this person.

 

[joelooc]

Quite so. I was just pointing at those shifts in the meaning of some words: "wicked" has become statistically positive, so has "terrible" in French, depending on trends. Awesome has the same root as awful and there's a dimension of terror/respect in both of them. Up to now calling someone un ahuri was quite derogatory and yet, as you remarked, it can now qualify an awesome movie. So I was talking about ahurissant in the sense of something/someone who leaves you flabbergasted. Along the same lines stupéfiant may mean ahurissant while as a noun it refers to drugs. I'll stop because I will get carried away on one of those lexical raves.