Bewildering

//bɪˈwɪldəɹɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    gerund of bewilder: bewilderment. form-of, gerund

    "Can this be the Bird, to man so good, / Our consecrated Robin! / That, after their bewildering, / Did cover with leaves the little children, / So painfully in the wood?"

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of bewilder form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Very baffling, confusing, or perplexing, often due to a very large choice being available.

    "There was a bewildering collection of curiosities filling the room."

Example

More examples

"Tom found the sheer size of the city bewildering at first."

Etymology

From bewilder (“to confuse, disorientate, or puzzle someone, especially with many different choices”) + -ing (suffix forming nouns or noun-like words from verbs, denoting the act of doing something, an action, or the embodiment of an action; and forming the present participles of verbs).

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