bewilderment

[bih-wil-der-muhnt]

noun

1. bewildered bewildered state.

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

   a bewilderment of smoke, noise, and pushing people.

Word History and Origins

Origin of bewilderment¹

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.

Read more on Salon

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

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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.

Read more on 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.

Read more on 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.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• confusion 
• disorientation www.thesaurus.com
• perplexity