BAFFLING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Baffling

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/bˈæfəlɪŋ/ /bˈæflɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Baffle v. t. (past & past part. baffled; pres. part. baffling)

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."

2.

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

3.

To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." "A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all." "Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a... recent period, the most enlightened nations." "The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us."

Baffling wind (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another.

Synonyms: To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.

Baffle v. i.

1.

To practice deceit. (Obs.)

2.

To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. (R.)

adjective

Baffling adj. Frustrating; discomfiting; disconcerting; as, baffling currents, winds, tasks.

See images of 'Baffling'

Etymology of 'Baffling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Baffling" Quotes from Famous Books

... by day only those can understand who have had the privilege of access to this hero: the most sensitive and the gentlest of men, silent and reserved; a man of controlled emotions, modest with a timidity that is at once baffling and delightful; loving his people less as a father loves his children than as a son loves his adoring mother. Of all that cherished kingdom, his pride and his joy, the seat of his happiness, the centre of his love ...

— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... the mingled delicacy and power of the bared arm and the shapely grace of the hand which she had lifted to her face, "I am going to get you to teach it ALL to me." The memories began crowding in upon him now, and the baffling note upon which the mazurka had stopped short chimed like a tuning-fork in his ears. "I want to be a Greek myself, if you're one. I want to get as close to you—to your ideal, that is, as I can. You open up to me a whole world that I had not even dreamed existed. ...

— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... one behind our lines was in communication with the Germans, every day. Secrecy was increased. Guards were doubled to see that no one slipped through the lines. Signals were watched. The whole affair was baffling, and yet we ...

— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... These baffling winds blew upon the smouldering anxiety in his breast, as wind blows upon embers, causing them to glow. They lasted some days, and then, as if Fate had relented, up sprang on the starboard quarter a spanking breeze, making the rigging sing to a merry tune, and blowing ...

— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... Colwyn was not due to any assistance he had received from the detective in the elucidation of baffling crime mysteries. It arose from an entirely different cause. Wolfe is supposed to have said that he would sooner have been remembered as the author of Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" than as the conqueror of Quebec. Mr. ...

— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

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