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

But the on-again, off-again nature of the process has resulted in a bewildered industry that has adopted a wait and see approach to investment decisions and supply chain alterations. —Jerrold Lundquist, Forbes.com, 30 Mar. 2025

Old Trafford was where distraught, bewildered fans felt physically compelled to go to express their grief. —Michael Walker, The Athletic, 15 Mar. 2025

Spaun looked bewildered as Rory stalked past him toward the 17th green. —David Faris, Newsweek, 18 Mar. 2025

The resulting bloodshed brings the pair of goofy gendarmes into bewildered action, as the Zero cavalry trots in on short-legged white horses and Jony, Line, Rudy, and the local One leader, Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei), deploy on their respective sides. —Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 11 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1760, in the meaning defined above