at a loss for words

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

at a loss for words

1. (idiomatic) Having nothing to say; not knowing what to say; stunned to the point of being speechless.

   She was at a loss for words when she saw the number of people who had come to grieve for her husband.

Synonyms

• lost for words

Translations

having nothing to say

• Catalan: quedar-se sense paraules
• Dutch: sprakeloos (nl)
• Finnish: mennä sanattomaksi (verb), mykistyä (fi) (verb)
• French: bouche bée (fr)
• Isan: เบิดคำสิเว้า (bə̀ət-kam-sì-wáo)
• Japanese: 言葉に出来ない (ことばにできない, kotoba ni dekinai)
• Polish: brak komuś słów (komuś is replaced with the appropriate noun or pronoun in dative)
• Thai: หมดคำจะพูด (mòt-kam-jà-pûut), พูดไม่ออก (pûut-mâi-ɔ̀ɔk)

See also

• words fail someone