Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a way or to an extent that befuddles

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

befuddling +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • Most of the movie is devoted to the Essex Rebellion against the queen, and the action hops back and forth in time so befuddlingly, with the same set of characters played by different actors, that I defy anyone who isn't a scholar of the period to understand what's going on.

    'Like Crazy': From Cupid's Blunders, Wonders Joe Morgenstern 2011

  • Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old sister of everyone's favourite befuddlingly clueless vagina model Britney Spears, has announced to the world that she's pregnant.

    Jamie Lynn Spears Gets Booted Off Zoey 101 2007

  • The baby, just 6 lbs 11 oz at birth, would grow into a soft-spoken political heavyweight, since 2001 the MP for the befuddlingly named constituency of West Bromwich East.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2011

  • The baby, just 6 lbs 11 oz at birth, would grow into a soft-spoken political heavyweight, since 2001 the MP for the befuddlingly named constituency of West Bromwich East.

    TIME.com: Top Stories 2011

  • I suppose it’s at least a sign we’re not regressing — it would look suspicious if, for instance, last year’s Art Basel showcased no more women than the Whitney’s permanent collection — but it’s otherwise a befuddlingly unhelpful juxtaposition, especially for a reader who doesn’t have an immediate association (with the relevant context) for all of these institutions.

    My Art Has Been Commended as Strongly Vaginal… 2007

  • Before Stavros, Lindsay dated Wilmer Valderrama, the That ’70s Show sidekick and befuddlingly successful swordsman who went on Howard Stern and spoke in graphic detail about his exploits with former girlfriends Mandy Moore, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lindsay.

    Nancy Jo Sales on Tabloid Boys Sales, Nancy Jo 2007

Comments

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  • "A typical example of this kind of thinking can be found in a little book written by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., called, befuddlingly enough since he is admittedly of the left, The Vital Center. Clarence Buford Carson, 1963, The Fateful Turn: from Individual Liberty to Collectivism, 1880-1960, Foundation for Economic Education, p. 164.

    March 2, 2011