baffle
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Origin uncertain.
Pronunciation
Verb
Lua error in Module:en-headword at line 1152: Legacy parameter 1=STEM no longer supported, just use 'en-verb' without params
- (obsolete) To publicly disgrace, especially of a recreant knight. [16th-17th c.]
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.7:
- He by the heeles him hung upon a tree, / And baffuld so, that all which passed by / The picture of his punishment might see […].
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.7:
- (obsolete) To hoodwink or deceive (someone). [16th-18th c.]
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Barrow to this entry?)
- To bewilder completely; to confuse or perplex. [from 17th c.]
- I am baffled by the contradictions and omissions in the instructions.
- Prescott
- calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a […] recent period, the most enlightened nations
- John Locke
- The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us.
- (now rare) To foil; to thwart. [from 17th c.]
- Cowper
- the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
- South
- a suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all
- 1915, Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, Fifty-One Tales:
- So they had to search the world again for a sphinx. And still there was none. But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her.
- Cowper
- (intransitive) To struggle in vain. [from 19th c.]
- A ship baffles with the winds.
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:confuse
Translations
to totally bewilder; confuse or perplex
Noun
baffle (plural baffles)
- A device used to dampen the effects of such things as sound, light, or fluid. Specifically, a baffle is a surface which is placed inside an open area to inhibit direct motion from one part to another, without preventing motion altogether.
- Tanker trucks use baffles to keep the liquids inside from sloshing around.
- An architectural feature designed to confuse enemies or make them vulnerable.
- (US, dialect, coal mining) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine.
Translations
regulating device
|
French
Pronunciation
Noun
baffle m (plural baffles)
- speaker (audio)
Categories:
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/æfəl
- English terms with obsolete senses
- Requests for quotations/Barrow
- English terms with rare senses
- English intransitive verbs
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- American English
- English dialectal terms
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns