befuddlement

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

befuddle +‎ -ment

Noun[edit]

befuddlement (countable and uncountable, plural befuddlements)

  1. The state of being befuddled.
    • 1907, Algernon Blackwood, “Max Hensig—Bacteriologist and Murderer” Chapter 4, in The Listener and Other Stories, New York: Knopf, 1917, p. 105,[1]
      It was, of course, an effect of hypnotism, he remembered thinking, vaguely through the befuddlement of his drink—this culminating effect of an evil and remorseless personality acting upon one that was diseased and extra receptive.
    • 1985, Don DeLillo, White Noise[2], Penguin, published 1986, Part I, Chapter 21, p. 162:
      A change came over his wind-beaten face, a slight befuddlement, the shock of some minor fact jarred loose.

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