Meanings
- uncountableThe quality of being perplexed; bafflement; confusion.
–Why do you wish to marry him? he persisted. She picked little strips of wood from the box, smiling in her perplexedness. He is my husband, she said, with the word that does not quite mean husband.
1948, Alan Paton, chapter 16, in Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, page 112 - obsoleteuncountableThe quality of being intricate, complicated or entangled.
1 more example
1689, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, London: Awnsham & John Churchil, 4th edition, 1700, Book 4, Chapter 8, Section 11, p. 317, […] most Writers are so far from instructing us in the Nature and Knowledge of Things, that they use their Words loosly and uncertainly, and do not, by using them constantly and steadily in the same signification, make plain and clear deductions of Words one from another, and make their Discourses coherent and clear, (how little soever it were instructive), which were not difficult to do, did they not find it convenient to shelter their Ignorance or Obstinacy, under the Obscurity and perplexedness of their Terms […]
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Cite this entry
perplexedness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perplexedness
“perplexedness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perplexedness. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “perplexedness,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perplexedness.
Source: perplexedness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.