astonisher

noun

1. Something that astonishes; an astonishing thing or event.

   “(colloquial)”

   “[…] the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa […] has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement—the most dangerous and heretical astonisher of all.”

   “1858, Abraham Lincoln, debate with Stephen A. Douglas on 10 July, 1858 in Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, London: J.M. Dent and New York: Dutton, 1907, p. 88, It [this court decision] is the first of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history; it is a new wonder of the world;”

   “He [the king pretending to be a peasant] was always frightening me, always breaking out with fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places.”

   “Well, if life were tragedy, it still was life, the ultimate astonisher.”

2. Someone who astonishes.

   “[…] God, before whom all Nations are as nothing, thou Astonisher of all Flesh, thou art even too Wonderful for me,”

   “[…] when they [the guides for tourists] excite an exclamation of wonder, they never sympathise with it, but treat it as a matter of course that you should be the astonished, and they the astonishers.”

   “1987, Gary Jennings, Spangle, New York: Atheneum, “France,” Chapter 8, p. 867, The equestrian director introduced her with almost Florian-florid superlatives-the wonder of her time, the astonisher of even the most jaded connaisseurs du cirque, and so on and so on-but still keeping a mystery Mademoiselle Mystère’s specialty.”

3. (US)An exclamation mark, the punctuation mark “!”.

   “1874, The American Observer, New Series, Volume 1, “Rejoinder,” p. 525, “ […] Nothing whatever” ! (the italics are “S. S. C.’s,” the “astonisher” is mine.)”

   “1947, Stewart Holbrook, The Story of American Railroads, American Legacy Press, 1981, Chapter 39, p. 443, More often than not these prophets […] belong to the oh-the-wonder-of-it-all school, who point to the sky as the new and sole artery of travel and transportation and marvel, in complete awe—which they indicate by running over with astonishers!—at the thought of monstrous planes hauling the freight and passengers of the nation, even of the world.”

   “1984, Richard Hauer Costa, “The Grisly Graphics of Malcolm Lowry” in Gordon Bowker and Paul Tiessen (eds.), Proceedings of the London Conference on Malcolm Lowry, Goldsmith’s College, University of London and The Malcolm Lowry Review, Wilfrid Laurier University, p. 100, An ad for a boxing match can symbolize the uncommunicable, with its curious shape-of-the-type configurations—¡BOX!, with the ‘astonisher’ written upside down before the word and right side up after.”

4. (US)A short line of smaller type above (or sometimes below) the main headline of an article, usually placed flush-left.
5. A headline or lead (introductory paragraph) designed to capture attention through a surprising statement.

   “He reveled in socking the reader right in the eye with an “astonisher.””