BAFFLING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does baffling mean? 

• BAFFLING (adjective)
  The adjective BAFFLING has 1 sense:

1. making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

  Familiarity information: BAFFLING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BAFFLING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Making great mental demands; hard to comprehend or solve or believe

Synonyms:

baffling; elusive; knotty; problematic; problematical; tough

Context example:

a problematic situation at home

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

 Context examples 

But, somehow, she grew less herself as the years went by, and more and more baffling.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Astronomers have four theories to explain the baffling X-ray glow, three of which involve different classes of stellar corpses.

(NASA's NuSTAR Captures Possible 'Screams' from Zombie Stars, NASA)

We laid her head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the voyage home without fresh hands; and as it was, what with baffling winds and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue—a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It was baffling.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The eyes themselves were of that baffling protean grey which is never twice the same; which runs through many shades and colourings like intershot silk in sunshine; which is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)