baffle

Word family

• baffled
  adjectiveC1
• baffling
  adjectiveC1
• bafflement
  nounC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All five verbs describe being unable to understand something, but the strength and flavour differ. 'Puzzle' is the everyday word: a crossword puzzles you, but you keep trying. 'Perplex' is more formal and suggests a moment of mental hesitation, often in writing. 'Bewilder' adds a feeling of being lost, usually because there is too much going on at once, like a tourist in a busy market. 'Mystify' hints that the cause feels strange or magical, as if it cannot be explained at all. 'Baffle' is the strongest of the group: when something baffles you, you have given up trying to explain it. Compare: 'The crossword puzzled me for ten minutes.' versus 'The crime scene baffled the entire police team for months.'

Common collocations

Etymology

The verb 'baffle' first appeared in English in the mid-1500s, originally meaning to publicly disgrace a knight who had broken his word, possibly from a Scottish word 'bauchle' meaning to mock. Over time the meaning softened from public shame to defeat in argument, and finally to the modern sense of confusing someone so completely that they cannot reply. The noun 'baffle', meaning a screen that blocks or redirects flow, came much later in the early 1900s and grew out of the same idea of holding something back or stopping it from getting through.