PERPLEX • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Perplex

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/pərplˈɛks/ Listen

verb

Perplex v. t. (past & past part. perplexed; pres. part. perplexing)

To involve; to entangle; to make intricate or complicated, and difficult to be unraveled or understood; as, to perplex one with doubts. "No artful wildness to perplex the scene." "What was thought obscure, perplexed, and too hard for our weak parts, will lie open to the understanding in a fair view."

To embarrass; to puzzle; to distract; to bewilder; to confuse; to trouble with ambiguity, suspense, or anxiety. "Perplexd beyond self-explication." "We are perplexed, but not in despair." "We can distinguish no general truths, or at least shall be apt to perplex the mind."

To plague; to vex; to torment.

Synonyms: To entangle; involve; complicate; embarrass; puzzle; bewilder; confuse; distract. See Embarrass.

adjective

Perplex adj. Intricate; difficult. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Perplex'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Perplex" Quotes from Famous Books

... Caxton, more quietly, "so, if later wars yet perplex us as to the good that the All-wise One draws from their evils, our posterity may read their uses as clearly as we now read the finger of Providence resting on the barrows of Marathon, or guiding Peter the Hermit to the battlefields of Palestine. Nor, while we admit the evil to the passing generation, ...

— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... is a matter of revelation, and therefore a matter of faith. I myself am a mysterious trinity of body, mind, and spirit. The fact I believe, but the how is not a thing to believe. It is at this point that many puzzle and perplex themselves needlessly. ...

— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... much accustomed to perplex his mind with theories of this nature, expressed no opinion on the subject. Nor did he receive his companion's announcement with one solitary syllable, good, bad, or indifferent. He preserved this taciturnity for a quarter ...

— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... Mr William Lee complained that parties had been excited against him at Nantes, and that so far from having been supported by the commissioners in the execution of his duty, these gentlemen had as much as possible contributed to perplex him in the discharge of it; that he had frequently written, &c. His letters have been taken notice of already, and the reason mentioned why they were not answered. The rest of this complaint is, as far as I know anything ...

— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... commemorated by the monuments of Greece and Rome. The venerable genius of antiquity, seated among crumbling arches and broken columns, has but little to say to us respecting those questions which most deeply agitate and unceasingly perplex the busy and the thinking part of mankind at the present day. No response are we to expect from that quarter, concerning our bank-laws and our corn-laws; our systems of credit and of commerce; our endless disquisitions on the balance of power and of parties, on the rights of suffrage and of conscience. ...

— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

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