bedevil
Americanverb (used with object)
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to torment or harass maliciously or diabolically, as with doubts, distractions, or worries.
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to possess, as with a devil; bewitch.
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to cause confusion or doubt in; muddle; confound.
an issue bedeviled by prejudices.
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to beset or hamper continuously.
a new building bedeviled by elevator failures.
verb
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to harass or torment
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to throw into confusion
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to possess, as with a devil
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bedevilsimple
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bedevilssimple
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have bedeviledperfect
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have bedevilledperfect
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has bedeviledperfect
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has bedevilledperfect
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am bedevilingprogressive
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am bedevillingprogressive
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are bedevilingprogressive
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are bedevillingprogressive
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is bedevilingprogressive
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is bedevillingprogressive
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have been bedevilingperfect progressive
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have been bedevillingperfect progressive
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has been bedevilingperfect progressive
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has been bedevillingperfect progressive
Past
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bedeviledsimple
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bedevilledsimple
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had bedeviledperfect
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had bedevilledperfect
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was bedevilingprogressive
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was bedevillingprogressive
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were bedevilingprogressive
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were bedevillingprogressive
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had been bedevilingperfect progressive
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had been bedevillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bedevil
Explanation
To bedevil is to "be" a bit like a "devil." To bedevil means to cause trouble, or, when talking about a person, to torment or harass. Bedevil has nothing to do with the eggs you eat on a picnic. Those are just plain deviled. And although, in the 1570s, bedeviled could be taken to mean literally "possessed," the word no longer involves an actual devil, either. It just applies to people or things that make trouble like a devil would want to do.
Vocabulary lists containing bedevil
This Week in Words: August 21 - 25, 2017
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The Midwife's Apprentice
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This Week In Culture: September 28–October 4, 2019
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But here, it’s directed at the young phenom Sasaki to bedevil hitters when he comes out in relief.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2025
The homeless tent encampments that block sidewalks and bedevil retail businesses have shrunk, while foot traffic and transit ridership have risen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025
"The systemic frictions that bedevil the US-China trade relationship will not be solved any time soon," Mr Olson adds.
From BBC ● May 9, 2025
Diseases like Alzheimer's, strokes and other cognitive impairments continue to bedevil doctors seeking a cure.
From Salon ● Apr. 4, 2024
I continued to bedevil the Law Society and registrar with demands, which they continued to deflect.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
To start, artificial intelligence likely will give individuals a much more precise answer to the question that bedevils so much of retirement planning today: How long will I live?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
It is a problem that Sullivan admits bedevils him to this day, although he also notes that CPAPs have evolved over the years to become much more comfortable than during his 1980 experiment.
From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2023
Superconductor-based computing systems, where electrical resistance in the switches and wires falls to zero, might solve the cooling challenge that increasingly bedevils the world’s data centers.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
To tackle such “lawful but awful” content that frequently bedevils content moderators, the EU will require extra scrutiny for the biggest online platforms - those with 45 million monthly users.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 15, 2022
I don’t claim that Powell had it all figured out: American history bedevils the most earnest attempts to make sense of it.
From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore
Tolo hopes to build a baseline picture of her health: She’s young and in the prime of her reproductive years, but her periods are characterized by severe pain that has long bedeviled her.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
It can seem as if Rahma has mastered a fractured, attention-driven media ecosystem that has bedeviled traditional entertainment executives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 12, 2026
He was stepping up to the plate to run against Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who has long bedeviled Democrats.
From Slate ● Apr. 13, 2026
No one is predicting the same type that bedeviled the economy during the 1970s, but the signs of a problem are there all the same.
From Barron's ● Mar. 6, 2026
His diabetes damaged his circulatory system and fostered a foot infection that bedeviled him for the rest of his life.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Or, thanks to streaming services, we can keep the same six or seven albums from 2001-2009 on repeat for the rest of our crisis bedevilled lives.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2022
But on both occasions it was bedevilled by hydrogen escaping from feed lines - among other issues.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2022
“Progress in arms control is also bedevilled by Newton’s Law,” he wrote in a 1987 essay.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2022
Toshiba, which has been bedevilled by accounting and governance crises since 2015, set up a special committee in April to solicit proposals after shareholders voted down a management-backed restructuring plan.
From Reuters ● Jun. 2, 2022
Unshaven, dishevelled, I sit all bedevilled; Your news has upset me,— It was meet it should fret me.
From Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II by Downey, Edmund
Some problems Smucker is facing are bedeviling other food makers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
Mateo represents a paradox bedeviling the U.S. nursing landscape.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2025
Not surprisingly, their questions were the same ones bedeviling the rest of us.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2024
Multiple spinouts forced the closure of Snoqualmie Pass in both directions Friday afternoon, bedeviling at least the start of Christmas weekend traffic.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
He could not enter any house, or come in contact with any person or thing, without utterly bedeviling them.
From Old New Zealand A Tale of the Good Old Times; and A History of the War in the North against the Chief Heke, in the Year 1845 by Maori, A Pakeha
The whole affair became a test case for Pope Francis's aim of clearing up the Vatican's finances, which were long plagued by scandal, bedevilling the papacy of Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI.
From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2023
Those updates should shrink the error bars on the telescope’s calibrations from the tens of percentage points that have been bedevilling astronomers in some areas, down to just a few percentage points.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 11, 2022
But the supply-chain snarl-ups, container traffic jams and chip shortages bedevilling companies worldwide show no signs of going away any time soon.
From Reuters ● Oct. 26, 2021
The most recent strain bedevilling the EU arrived via Georgia in 2007.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 30, 2019
He'll be human or you wouldn't fall in love with him; and always he'll be pondering and bedevilling himself with queer ideas—because he'll be human.
From The Drums of Jeopardy by MacGrath, Harold
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
