Baffle \Baf"fle\ (b[a^]f"f'l), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Baffled} (-f'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. {Baffling} (-fl[i^]ng).] [Cf. Lowland Scotch bauchle to treat contemptuously, bauch tasteless, abashed, jaded, Icel. b[=a]gr uneasy, poor, or b[=a]gr, n., struggle, b[ae]gja to push, treat harshly, OF. beffler, beffer, to mock, deceive, dial. G. b["a]ppe mouth, beffen to bark, chide.] 1. To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. [Obs.]
He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see. --Spenser.
2. To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil.
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim. --Cowper.
3. To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. ``A baffled purpose.'' --De Quincey.
A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. --South.
Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. --Prescott.
The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us. --Locke.
{Baffling wind} (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another.
Syn: To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.
Baffle \Baf"fle\, v. i. 1. To practice deceit. [Obs.] --Barrow.
2. To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. [R.]
Baffle \Baf"fle\, n. 1. A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. [R.] ``A baffle to philosophy.'' --South.
2. (Engin.) (a) A deflector, as a plate or wall, so arranged across a furnace or boiler flue as to mingle the hot gases and deflect them against the substance to be heated. (b) A grating or plate across a channel or pipe conveying water, gas, or the like, by which the flow is rendered more uniform in different parts of the cross section of the stream; -- used in measuring the rate of flow, as by means of a weir. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
2. (Coal Mining) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine. [Local, U. S.] [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
As many are already finding out, though, keeping up with this tax overhaul can baffle even sophisticated investors.
A military rout was presented within Iraq as a David-like defiance of the western imperialist Goliath. Saddam's survival continues to baffle western governments, though not the people of Iraq.
"We've always said the government was not coming down sufficiently strongly on the right wing, and there have been very many incidents in the past which just seem to baffle the police," Tutu said in an interview with Sky TV during a visit to Britain.
Army scientists are gaining ground in their quest for the ultimate smoke screen, a "universal obscurant" that would baffle an enemy, fool "smart" weapons and conceal friendly forces.
Instead Qiu Ju bundles as many faces as it can into the frame - using depth as in a 3D movie - and deploys its multiplicity of human detail like chaff to baffle an Exocet.