BAFFLING

baffling, elusive, knotty, problematic, problematical, tough

(adjective) making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe; “a baffling problem”; “I faced the knotty problem of what to have for breakfast”; “a problematic situation at home”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Verb

baffling

present participle of baffle

Adjective

baffling (comparative more baffling, superlative most baffling)

Puzzling, perplexing, bewildering.

frustrating

Noun

baffling (plural bafflings)

An act of foiling or thwarting.

Source: Wiktionary


Baf"fling, a.

Definition: Frustrating; discomfiting; disconcerting; as, baffling currents, winds, tasks.

– Bafflingly, adv.

– Bafflingness, n.

BAFFLE

Baf"fle, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Baffled (p. pr. & vb. n. Baffling (.] Etym: [Cf. Lowland Scotch bauchle to treat contemptuously, bauch tasteless, abashed, jaded, Icel. bagr uneasy, poor, or bagr, n., struggle, bægja to push, treat harshly, OF. beffler, beffer, to mock, deceive, dial. G. bäppe mouth, beffen to bark, chide.]

1. To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. [Obs.] He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see. Spenser.

2. To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil. The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim. Cowper.

3. To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." De Quincey. A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. South. Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. Prescott. The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us. Locke. Baffling wind (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another.

Syn.

– To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.

Baf"fle, v. i.

1. To practice deceit. [Obs.] Barrow.

2. To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. [R.]

Baf"fle, n.

Definition: A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. [R.] "A baffle to philosophy." South.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

16 November 2024

LEAVE

(verb) go and leave behind, either intentionally or by neglect or forgetfulness; “She left a mess when she moved out”; “His good luck finally left him”; “her husband left her after 20 years of marriage”; “she wept thinking she had been left behind”


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Coffee Trivia

In 1884, Angelo Moriondo of Turin, Italy, demonstrated the first working example of an espresso machine.

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