bewilder
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /bɪˈwɪldə(ɹ)/
  • (GA) IPA: /bɪˈwɪldɚ/
Verb

bewilder (bewilders, present participle bewildering; past and past participle bewildered)

  1. (transitive) To confuse, disorientate, or puzzle#Verb|puzzle someone, especially with many different choices.
    Synonyms: befuddle, Thesaurus:confuse
    All the different possible options may bewilder us.
    Don’t push me into that maze and bewilder me.
    • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter II, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., OCLC 34363729 ↗, page 28 ↗:
      "Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think."
    • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, “Burglary”, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384 ↗, page 35 ↗:
      She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
Conjugation