Word
Se quedó de piedra y ni parpadeó.
Meaning
She was stunned and didn't even blink.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se quedó de piedra y ni parpadeó.
y
and
ni
nor / not even
parpadear
to blink
quedarse de piedra
to be stunned, to be left speechless
Questions & Answers about Se quedó de piedra y ni parpadeó.
Why use se quedó instead of a verb like estuvo or se puso to mean 'was'?
Quedarse is used here as a verb of change to express a sudden reaction or resulting state. The phrase quedarse de piedra is a common idiom meaning to be stunned, amazed, or petrified (literally, to stay of stone). You wouldn't use se puso because that is typically for temporary emotional changes, like ponerse triste, whereas quedarse implies being left in a paralyzed or lasting state.
Doesn't ni usually mean 'nor' or 'neither'? Why is it translated as 'not even'?
While ni is commonly used in negative pairs like ni... ni... (neither... nor...), it is also frequently used on its own as a shortened form of ni siquiera, which means 'not even.' In spoken Spanish, dropping siquiera is very common for adding quick emphasis, as in ni parpadeó (didn't even blink).
Why is the preterite tense used for both verbs here instead of the imperfect?
The preterite is used because the sentence describes sudden, completed actions. Se quedó marks the exact moment she became stunned. If you used the imperfect se quedaba, it would imply an ongoing process of becoming stunned, which doesn't fit the instantaneous nature of this idiom. Similarly, the preterite parpadeó treats her failure to blink as a single, completed event in that moment.