bewilderment

American  

[bih-wil-der-muhnt] / bɪˈwɪl dər mənt /

noun

1. bewildered bewildered state.

2. a confusing maze or tangle, as of objects or conditions.

   a bewilderment of smoke, noise, and pushing people.

---

Etymology

Origin of bewilderment

First recorded in 1810–20; bewilder + -ment

Example Sentences

If Grace was staring down her holiday meal with equal parts courage and bewilderment, surely others were too.

From Salon

He tipped his head to the side in a doglike expression of bewilderment.

From Literature

They were stand-ins for mid-1940s moviegoers; more to the point, mirrors, reflecting the full range of audience reactions—love, respect, bewilderment, compassion, impatience, contempt—to the battered men recently restored to their midst.

From The Wall Street Journal

Elsewhere in the crowd, bewilderment laced with anger when families who had been informed that their loved ones would be released discovered they weren’t on the buses after all.

From Los Angeles Times

At the end, there seemed to be bewilderment among the masses of Hampden, a dazed feeling about how to react to what they'd just witnessed.

From BBC

Related Words

• confusion
• disorientation
• perplexity