baffle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To frustrate or check (a person) as by confusing or perplexing; stymie.
2. v. To impede the force or movement of.
3. n. A usually static device that regulates the flow of a fluid or light.
4. n. A partition that prevents interference between sound waves in a loudspeaker.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To disgrace; treat with mockery or contumely; hold up as an object of scorn or contempt; insult; specifically, to subject to indignities, as a recreant knight or traitor.
2. To hoodwink; cheat.
3. To circumvent by interposing obstacles or difficulties; defeat the efforts, purpose, or success of; frustrate; check; foil; thwart; disconcert; confound: as, the fox baffled his pursuers; to baffle curiosity or endeavor.
4. To beat about, as the wind or stray cattle do standing grain or grass; twist irregularly together. Synonyms Foil, Thwart, etc. See frustrate.
5. To practise deceit; shuffle; quibble.
6. To struggle ineffectually; strive in vain: as, the ship baffled with the gale.
7. In coalmining, to brush out or mix fire-damp with air, to such an extent as to render it non-explosive.
8. n. Disgrace; affront.
9. n. Defeat; discomfiture.
10. n. Same as baffler, 2.
11. n. An artificial obstruction (in the form of board, plate, or cleat placed in the channel) to the continuous smooth flow of a liquid or gas. It is used for the purpose of producing a thorough mixture of the flowing medium, or of checking its velocity, or of detaining solid matters transported or propelled by the flowing medium.

Wiktionary

1. n. A device used to dampen the effects of such things as sound, light, or fluid. Specifically, a baffle is a surface which is placed inside an open area to inhibit direct motion from one part to another, without preventing motion altogether.
2. n. An architectural feature designed to confuse enemies or make them vulnerable.
3. v. Totally bewilder; confuse or perplex.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight.
2. v. To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil.
3. v. To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart.
4. v. obsolete To practice deceit.
5. v. rare To struggle against in vain.
6. n. rare A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture.
7. n. A deflector, as a plate or wall, so arranged across a furnace or boiler flue as to mingle the hot gases and deflect them against the substance to be heated.
8. n. A grating or plate across a channel or pipe conveying water, gas, or the like, by which the flow is rendered more uniform in different parts of the cross section of the stream; -- used in measuring the rate of flow, as by means of a weir.
9. n. (Coal Mining), Local, U. S. A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. check the emission of (sound)
2. v. be a mystery or bewildering to
3. n. a flat plate that controls or directs the flow of fluid or energy
4. v. hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of