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

Yes, Sam Darnold looked bewildered against Detroit in the regular season finale, and that conjures all sorts of lingering doubts. —Jordan Brenner, The Athletic, 10 Jan. 2025

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore brought different weapons to this cute fight: bobcat Kilgore and otter Brie, both seeming a little bewildered by the powder that surrounded them today. —NBC News, 7 Jan. 2025

Videos shared across social media showed gaunt and bewildered prisoners, including toddlers, stumbling out of dark cells into the light. —The Week Uk, theweek, 14 Dec. 2024

Before dawn, bewildered residents drove near military installations around the capital, noting that no soldiers appeared to be manning the gates and that posts seemed abandoned. —Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 8 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1760, in the meaning defined above