mystify
/ˈmɪstɪfʌɪ
/verb (mystifies, mystifying, mystified) [with object]
1Utterly bewilder or perplex (someone): I was completely mystified by his disappearance (as adjective mystifying) a mystifying phenomenon...
- The next time you meet some person who is utterly captivated by some undertaking that completely mystifies you, give him the benefit of the doubt.
- ‘I'm utterly mystified,’ said one bemused spokesman earlier today.
- On top of that I am also managing a small team whose purpose completely mystifies me.
Synonyms
bewilder, puzzle, perplex, baffle, confuse, confound, bemuse, obfuscate, nonplus, throw, get
informal flummox, be all Greek to, stump, bamboozle, beat, faze, fox
archaic wilder, gravel, maze
1.1Make obscure or mysterious: lawyers who mystify the legal system so that laymen find it unintelligible...
- I know that they want to mystify the legal process by using complex terms.
- The gothic also mystifies the social system in other ways, most notably through a type of transference.
- The elaborate metaphors and dense prose could be said to mystify or obscure the material conditions being described, shifting attention from the state of human injury to the ornateness of the language in which it is rendered.
Derivatives
mystification
/ noun ...- And every time there's this look on his face of shock and mystification.
- The neighbor disrobes and performs some ritual dance to his amusement and mystification.
- Friends express complete mystification that I'm not there this year.
mystifier
- The critic called her a paranoiac and mystifier, and she became an emblem of revolt against conservative art.
mystifyingly
/ adverb ...- Where some gallery's might do a specially priced show to raise funds, Gallery 4A have rather mystifyingly charged full monty on the works.
- The play focuses on a triangle in which sex, love and parenthood become as mystifyingly intertwined as the lives of the three friends.
- ‘One thing you can say is that they are creating chances,’ Ceasar added after we had hit the post again and claimed for a goal, which the referee, mystifyingly, ruled as offside.
Origin
Early 19th century: from French mystifier, formed irregularly from mystique 'mystic' or from mystère 'mystery'.