bewilder

The absurdist’s power rests in their ability to befuddle and bewilder, trusting the joke will land with the right folks and insult their target’s intelligence.

From Salon ● May 21, 2026

Essential to a wilderness is its capacity to bewilder, and though certain of Church’s colleagues in the Hudson River group, notably Worthington Whittredge, brilliantly captured this dense, enfolding quality, Church seldom did.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026

If the soul of Leif Erikson were to materialize inside his statue for a day, much of what he saw would bewilder him.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 13, 2023

Thanksgiving is a time for making people happy, not for persuading them to drink avant-garde styles that you love but that may bewilder mainstream drinkers.

From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2021

Bond market terminology was designed less to convey meaning than to bewilder outsiders.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

It all bewilders some who say they supported Muslims when they were under attack from the far-right and now feel betrayed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2023

The variety of goals that the Japanese striker scores is astonishing, but all of them have one thing in common - speed of thought that bewilders the unfortunates tasked with the job of marking him.

From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2023

Basra continually bewilders experts, envoys and residents: How can a relatively stable province so rich in resources rank among the poorest and most under-developed in the country?

From Washington Times ● Mar. 24, 2023

Basra continually bewilders experts, envoys and residents: How can a relatively stable province so rich in resources rank among the poorest and most underdeveloped in the country?

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 23, 2023

You cannot help fancying you are inside a mill all the time, with such a multitude of wheels rattling round and round, that it quite bewilders one.

From Shireen and her Friends Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat by Gordon Stables

Since the entire brand of America’s foremost tastemaker is to discern the good things from tackiness, the debacle has bewildered longtime fans.

From Salon ● Nov. 2, 2026

Cong has bewildered opponents at weigh-ins while wearing the face paint, and says she even adopts the Joker alias when using social media messaging back home in China.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

Other times, I was interviewing believers and, more often, their bewildered loved ones.

From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026

“As if I had to go to the back of the line and wait my turn,” Mr. Guimarães says, bewildered.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

I pause and turn to a bewildered man in a bunk.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Although there weren’t many of them numerically, the errors that the A.I. did make were confusing and bewildering enough to be disqualifying.

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026

Ms. Turetsky applies a bewildering array of nouns to describe peat—it is a vault, a tomb, a record, a pendulum, an archive.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Remembering that lesson will surely help bereaved families through a process that many find bewildering at best; incomprehensible at worst.

From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026

One of the more bewildering primary results of the year came this week in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, a swing seat currently represented by Democratic freshman Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet.

From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2026

His job was to prove that Dreyfus’s handwriting matched the incriminating note, and he took the stand with a bewildering display of charts and pseudoscientific diagrams.

From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day