befog

present singular third person befogs · participle present befogging · participle past befogged · past befogged

1. To envelop in fog or smoke.

   Clouds of the most expensive incense befog the chancel […]

   1916, E. F. Benson, “The Spiritual Pastor”, in The Freaks of Mayfair, London: T.N. Foulis, page 186

   1 more example

   1953, Jean Stafford, “Cops and Robbers” (original title: “The Shorn Lamb”) in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, New York: Dutton, 1984, p. 432, Sad, in her covert, Hannah saw that her mother was now sitting straight against the headboard and was smoking a cigarette in long, meditative puffs; the smoke befogged her frowning forehead.

2. To confuse, mystify (a person); to make less acute or perceptive, to cloud (a person’s faculties).

   1871, Carl Schurz, Speech in the U.S. Senate, 27 January, 1871, in Frederic Bancroft (ed.), Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, New York: Putnam, 1913, Volume II, p. 151, The voice of interested sycophancy is apt to fill their ears and to befog their judgment.

   3 more examples

   “[…] He’s been blarneying you. You’ve let his plausible tongue and handsome face befog you.”

   1921, Harold MacGrath, chapter 14, in The Pagan Madonna, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, page 177

   […] they pray that they may befog minds with untruths and poison God’s sweet air of breath,

   1938, Rabindranath Tagore, “Worshippers of Buddha”, in The Visva-Bharati Quarterly, Volume 4, Part 1, May-July 1938, p. 28

   Everything looked gray and shabby, the faces as much as the clothes. She thought it was less the shade than the noise which was befogging her vision, choking her thoughts.

   1981, Ramsey Campbell, chapter 8, in The Nameless, New York: Tor, published 1985, page 75

3. To obscure, make less clear (a subject, issue, etc.).

   How they had managed to befog the subject! What elaborate show-structures they had built up, with no result but to obscure the horizon!

   1880, [Henry Brooks Adams], chapter V, in Democracy: An American Novel (Leisure-hour Series; no. 112), New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 84

   1 more example

   There is only one way to understand syphilis, and that is to give it impartial, discriminating discussion as an issue which concerns the general health. To color it up and hang it in a gallery of horrors, or to befog it with verbal turnings and twistings, are equally serious mistakes.

   1918, John H. Stokes, chapter 2, in The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People, Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, pages 15–16