Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations, objects, or statements. See Synonyms at puzzle.
- v. To cause to lose one's bearings; disorient: The twists and turns in the cave soon bewildered us.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To confuse as to direction or situation; cause to lose the proper road or course: as, the intricacy of the streets bewildered him; to be bewildered in the woods.
- To lead into perplexity or confusion; perplex; puzzle; confuse.
- Synonyms To confound, confuse,mystify, nonplus.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To confuse, puzzle or befuddle someone, especially with many different things.
- v. transitive To disorientate someone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To lead into perplexity or confusion, as for lack of a plain path; to perplex with mazes; or in general, to perplex or confuse greatly.
WordNet 3.0
- v. be a mystery or bewildering to
- v. cause to be confused emotionally
Etymologies
- From be- + wilder (Wiktionary)
Examples
“I beg the reader not to let the term bewilder him but to make it his own.”
“The buttons on his push-button phone kind of bewilder him at times.”
Beyond the Promised Land: Jews and Arabs on a Hard Road to a New Israel
“Go to Michelin-starred chef Heinz Beck's Apsley menus 'bewilder' critic”
“That was a little bit of a challenge, and might bewilder some, but it confirmed one truism: Save your manuals!”
The Huffington Post: Robert J. Elisberg: The Writers Workbench: The Slingbox
“In a Better World" is decorated with some gorgeous photography, both of Denmark and Africa; children in the latter are depicted as joyous, despite the sadistic violence around them; children in Denmark are preoccupied with matters that bewilder the war-weary Anton, who tries to teach the boys a lesson about the never-ending nature of revenge and retribution, but to little effect.”
The Wall Street Journal: 'Insidious': Scary Eyeful of the Unknown
“Some of my favorites include: behoove bewilder bologna ... only because it is not spelled the way it sounds nonetheless ... 3 words in 1!”
“A team that focuses heavily on defense and relies on a tough matchup zone to bewilder opponents, Rutgers held foes to fewer than 55 points a game.”
“Eleven years on and the hurried portraits of Dave, Nick and Mat will this week be put up for auction at a sale which will either bewilder people, or get them hunting through drawers for that elusive bit of paper from the time they got the artist to draw them a picture.”
“The nuances never quite settle to a point of reference, and instead confuse, bewilder, and even overwhelm.”
Blind Tasting of Finger Lakes Pinot Noir Reveals Progress, Challenges
“This Health Care issue keeps taking turns and twist that bewilder the mind in thoughts.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Constitutional Challenges to the Health Care Bill
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bewilder’.
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Confusually
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baffle, farrago, confound, befuddle, daze, disorient, discombobulate, stupefy, perplex, mystify, bewilder, boggle and 134 more...
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I am : mystified
As in, 'confused' and 'entranced' both.
mystify, entrance, enrapture, puzzle, ensorcell, confound, mesmerize, confuse, bewitch, captivate, beguile, fascinate and 11 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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jan_21
magoosh listens
infuriating, imperciptible, sporadic, galvanize, shirk, protean, versatile, auspicious, clairvoyance, nary, presentiment, qualm and 63 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Mr. Prolagus is surprised
Words - or different usages of words I already knew - that I am learning thanks to Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
See also ofravens' with thanks to Anne Shirley.alder, decorum, ferret, dint, wont, gauntlet, turnip, sorrel, deft, embower, scant, peck and 92 more...
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Belistful
Tubey or not tubey.
belittle, bedazzle, besiege, besmirch, bespeckle, beget, bemoan, befuddle, befriend, become, besot, becloud and 596 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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GRE
anomaly, assuage, enigma, equivocal, erudite, fervid, placate, lucid, opaque, precipitate, prodigal, zeal and 113 more...
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Words from "Pearls Before Breakfast"
nondescript, shrewd, seed money, bureaucrat, indeterminate, fungible, cupidity, banal, grandeur, utilitarian, buffer, ecstatic and 123 more...
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NTB
chaos, Sagittarius, aether, magic, jester, fool, random, delirium, fire, life, cosmic, riddle and 120 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
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litigious semantics
ad unguem, abeyance, choleric, contentious, curmudgeonly, churlish, dictatorial, vindictive, dogmatic, truculent, mutinous, refractory and 254 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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practice 1
daily practice
enamor, blatant, cornucopia, conspicuously, ensconce, obdurate, plausible, reprieve, gaudy, tawdry, obfuscate, bewilder and 105 more...
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supplementary
for enhancement of any English test
consanguineous, worldly, naiveté, enshroud, pernicious, prerogative, traitor, fledgling, vengeance, provision, furnish, quarrel and 94 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bewilder.
alexz An universal etymological English dictionary c. 1675
says it comes from Berwildert
Teutonic
http://books.google.ca/books?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ Mar 1, 2013
bilby Etymology? Mar 1, 2013