befuddlement

plural befuddlements

1. countableuncountableThe state of being befuddled; a feeling of being dazed and perplexed due to confusion.

   His words struck me with a sense of befuddlement that lasted until I got home.

   2 more examples

   1907, Algernon Blackwood, “Max Hensig—Bacteriologist and Murderer” Chapter 4, in The Listener and Other Stories, New York: Knopf, 1917, p. 105, It was, of course, an effect of hypnotism, he remembered thinking, vaguely through the befuddlement of his drink—this culminating effect of an evil and remorseless personality acting upon one that was diseased and extra receptive.

   A change came over his wind-beaten face, a slight befuddlement, the shock of some minor fact jarred loose.

   1985, Don DeLillo, White Noise, Penguin, published 1986, Part I, Chapter 21, p. 162

   Synonyms: bafflement, bewilderment, confusion, perplexity, puzzlement