Meanings
plural mystifications
- countableuncountableThe act of mystifying or the condition of being mystified.
For a structuralist like Edmund Leach, the structure is the meaning. Genesis, for example, is about incest taboos; all the rest is noise and mystification.
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 121 more example
But soon one notices, first in ones and twos, and then in larger groups, men who are very much alive at this hour in the morning, the sorters for the Caledonian, and Edinburgh sections of the "Down Special"; mail is piled high on the platforms, and the postal men glance occasionally towards the platform intermediate signals. By this time the calling-on arm is pulled off, and a few minutes later in comes the train, unannounced by the loud-speakers, to the mystification of many travellers.
1948 May and June, O. S. Nock, “Scottish Night Mails of the L.M.S.R.—3”, in Railway Magazine, page 157 - countableuncountableA mystifying thing.
Synonyms & antonyms
nounconfusion resulting from failure to understand
nounthe activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchmystification
- Englishmystification
From French mystification.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish kummastuminen, hämmentyminen
- kummastuminenact of being mystified
- hämmentyminenact of being mystified
- mystifikaatioact of being mystified
German Verblüffung
- Verblüffungact of being mystified
Russian мистифика́ция
- мистифика́ция (mistifikácija)act of being mystified
Cite this entry
mystification. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystification
“mystification.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystification. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mystification,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystification.
Source: mystification on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.