empuzzle

English

Etymology

em- +‎ puzzle

Verb

empuzzle (third-person singular simple present empuzzles, present participle empuzzling, simple past and past participle empuzzled)

1. (archaic) To puzzle.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica‎^[1], London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, published 1650, Book I, Chapter 1, p. 1:

     It hath empuzzeled the enquiries of others to apprehend, and enforced them unto strange conceptions, to make out how without fear or doubt she [Eve] could discourse with such a creature, or hear a Serpent speak, without suspition of imposture.

   • 1822, William Tennant, The Thane of Fife‎^[2], Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Canto II, Stanza 64, p. 83:

     They twist and trip and intervolve it well,
     Flinging their phasms fantastically high,
     Circling her chair with maze inscrutable,
     Not to be follow’d by th’ empuzzled eye.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “empuzzle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)