BEWILDER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bewilder mean? 

• BEWILDER (verb)
  The verb BEWILDER has 2 senses:

1. be a mystery or bewildering to

2. cause to be confused emotionally

  Familiarity information: BEWILDER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEWILDER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they bewilder    ... he / she / it bewilders   
Past simple: bewildered   
Past participle: bewildered   
-ing form: bewildering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be a mystery or bewildering to

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

amaze; baffle; beat; bewilder; dumbfound; flummox; get; gravel; mystify; nonplus; perplex; pose; puzzle; stick; stupefy; vex

Context example:

This question really stuck me

Hypernyms (to "bewilder" is one way to...):

bedevil; befuddle; confound; confuse; discombobulate; fox; fuddle; throw (be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "bewilder"):

mix up; stump (cause to be perplexed or confounded)

riddle (set a difficult problem or riddle)

elude; escape (be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The bad news will bewilder him
The good news will bewilder her
The performance is likely to bewilder Sue

Derivation:

bewilderment (confusion resulting from failure to understand)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to be confused emotionally

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

bemuse; bewilder; discombobulate; throw

Hypernyms (to "bewilder" is one way to...):

discomfit; discompose; disconcert; untune; upset (cause to lose one's composure)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The bad news will bewilder him
The good news will bewilder her
The performance is likely to bewilder Sue

 Context examples 

I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The swiftness of it was bewildering.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"I don't understand it. What can there be in a simple little story like that to make people praise it so?" she said, quite bewildered.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

With the exception of the two mongrels, they were bewildered and spirit-broken by the strange savage environment in which they found themselves and by the ill treatment they had received.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

They were very long, very numerous, very hard—perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me—and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has bewildered me.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was bewildered, in a cloud of wonder and horror.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The captain, for his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At the sound soldiers came rushing from their tents, knights shouted loudly for their squires, and there was mad turmoil on every hand of bewildered men and plunging horses.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)