Befog

verb

verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To envelop in fog or smoke.

    "Clouds of the most expensive incense befog the chancel […]"

  2. 2
    make less visible or unclear wordnet
  3. 3
    To confuse, mystify (a person); to make less acute or perceptive, to cloud (a person’s faculties).

    "1871, Carl Schurz, Speech in the U.S. Senate, 27 January, 1871, in Frederic Bancroft (ed.), Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, New York: Putnam, 1913, Volume II, p. 151, The voice of interested sycophancy is apt to fill their ears and to befog their judgment."

  4. 4
    To obscure, make less clear (a subject, issue, etc.).

    "How they had managed to befog the subject! What elaborate show-structures they had built up, with no result but to obscure the horizon!"

Synonyms

All synonyms
obscurebecloudbecloudbedimbemistbewilder

Example

More examples

"The cursed crown began to befog the king's judgment."

Etymology

From be- + fog.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.