startlement

noun

1. An instance of being startled; surprise.

   “There is no pursing up and general startlement—the thing of all others I dread.”

   “Whether by means large or small, noticed or almost imperceptible, poetry's startlements displace the existing self with a changed one.”

   “I discern three interrelated levels at which startlement is experienced in Hitchcock. First, startlement may take the form of an actual event in the world. The extinguisher's rattle, for instance, is said by the truck driver to “get to you”; and, about the tap-tapping in Marnie, the heroine says that “it means they want in.””