baffle

1. To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. [Obs.] He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see. Spenser. 2. To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil. The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim. Cowper. 3. To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." De Quincey. A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. South. Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. Prescott. The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us. Locke. Baffling wind (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another. Syn. -- To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat. 1. To practice deceit. [Obs.] Barrow. 2. To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. [R.] A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. [R.] "A baffle to philosophy." South.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), United States public domain. See methodology for full licensing detail. Word validity for game play may differ from any official game dictionary.