Definition of "speechlessness" [speechlessness]

• The state of being speechless. (noun)

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• "In Homer there is a term for speechlessness as a defect not a transient emotional state, and in Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles uses a word meaning “privation of voice.”"
• "I was shocked into speechlessness, which is rare for me."
• "Then too he learns to suspect that when he has tried to be impressive, he has often only succeeded in being priggish; and the result is that he falls into a kind of speechlessness, comforting himself, as he sits mute and awkward, unduly elongated, and with unaccountable projections of limb and feature, that if only other people were a little less self-absorbed, had the gift of perceiving hidden worth and real character, and could pierce a little below the surface, they would realise what reserves of force and tenderness lay beneath the heavy shapelessness of which he is still conscious."