bewildered

adjective

be·​wil·​dered bi-ˈwil-dərd 

bē-

: deeply or utterly confused or perplexed

I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything.

—Bram Stoker

He looked at her with a bewildered expression.

Speaking for myself, I stumbled into motherhood and was bewildered at the shift of gears, the volte-face required to reorient myself, my values and my way of life into being a carer of small children.

—Madeleine Bunting

Synonyms

• addle
• addled
• addlepated
• bedeviled
• befogged
• befuddled
• bemused
• bushed [chiefly Australian]
• confounded
• confused
• dazed
• distracted
• dizzy
• dopey
• dopy
• fogged
• mixed-up
• muddleheaded
• muzzy
• pixilated
• pixillated
• punch-drunk
• punchy
• raddled
• shell-shocked
• silly
• slaphappy
• spaced-out
• spaced
• spacey
• spacy
• stunned
• stupefied
• zonked
• zonked-out

Examples of bewildered in a Sentence

the bewildered child wandered aimlessly around the playground

Recent Examples on the Web

Fauci spoke frequently to the worried and bewildered American public at government news conferences, giving status updates and offering guidance on such topics as face masks, social distancing, school closures, hospitalization rates and, eventually, vaccines. —Andrea Kane, CNN, 18 June 2024

Reaction to the interpretation has ranged from enraptured to bewildered. —Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 June 2024

Instead of hearing Fox announcers Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, bewildered viewers watched as a phantom force appeared to hack their screens and begin scrolling through the tiles of a standard-issue streaming app. —Josef Adalian, Vulture, 14 June 2024

Once reality set in, the media piled on the bewildered quarterback. —Bob Raissman, New York Daily News, 27 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1760, in the meaning defined above