bewilder

From be- +‎ wilder

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɪˈwɪldə(ɹ)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bɪˈwɪldəɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɪldə(ɹ)

bewilder (third-person singular simple present bewilders, present participle bewildering, simple past and past participle bewildered)

1. (transitive) To confuse, puzzle or befuddle someone, especially with many different things.

   All the different possible options may bewilder us.

   • 2018 June 18, Phil McNulty, “Tunisia 1 - 2 England”, in BBC Sport‎:

     It was remarkable that Tunisia reached half-time on level terms as they were often bewildered by England's pace and movement before being spared by their generosity in front of goal.

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter II, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     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.

2. (transitive) To disorientate someone.

   Don't push me into that maze and bewilder me.

• See also Thesaurus:confuse

• bewilder in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• bewilder in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.