Crossword clues for baffle
baffle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Baffle \Baf"fle\ (b[a^]f"f'l), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Baffled (-f'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Baffling (-fl[i^]ng).] [Cf. Lowland Scotch bauchle to treat contemptuously, bauch tasteless, abashed, jaded, Icel. b[=a]gr uneasy, poor, or b[=a]gr, n., struggle, b[ae]gja to push, treat harshly, OF. beffler, beffer, to mock, deceive, dial. G. b["a]ppe mouth, beffen to bark, chide.]
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To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. [Obs.]
He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see.
--Spenser. -
To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil.
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim.
--Cowper. -
To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. ``A baffled purpose.''
--De Quincey.A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all.
--South.Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations.
--Prescott.The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us.
--Locke.Baffling wind (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another.
Syn: To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.
Baffle \Baf"fle\, v. i.
To practice deceit. [Obs.]
--Barrow.To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. [R.]
Baffle \Baf"fle\, n.
A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. [R.] ``A baffle to philosophy.''
--South.-
(Engin.)
A deflector, as a plate or wall, so arranged across a furnace or boiler flue as to mingle the hot gases and deflect them against the substance to be heated.
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A grating or plate across a channel or pipe conveying water, gas, or the like, by which the flow is rendered more uniform in different parts of the cross section of the stream; -- used in measuring the rate of flow, as by means of a weir.
2. (Coal Mining) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine. [Local, U. S.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1540s, "to disgrace," perhaps a Scottish respelling of bauchle "to disgrace publicly" (especially a perjured knight), which is probably related to French bafouer "to abuse, hoodwink" (16c.), possibly from baf, a natural sound of disgust, like bah (compare German baff machen "to flabbergast"). Meaning "to bewilder, confuse" is from 1640s; that of "to defeat someone's efforts" is from 1670s. Related: Baffled; baffling.
"shielding device," 1881, from baffle (v.).
Wiktionary
n. 1 A device used to dampen the effects of such things as sound, light, or fluid. Specifically, a baffle is a surface which is placed inside an open area to inhibit direct motion from one part to another, without preventing motion altogether. 2 An architectural feature designed to confuse enemies or make them vulnerable. 3 (cx US dialect coal mining English) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine. vb. 1 (context obsolete English) To publicly disgrace, especially of a recreant knight. (16th-17th c.) 2 (context obsolete English) To hoodwink or deceive (someone). (16th-18th c.) 3 To bewilder completely; to confuse or perplex. (from 17th c.) 4 (context now rare English) To foil; to thwart. (from 17th c.) 5 (context intransitive English) To struggle in vain. (from 19th c.)
WordNet
n. a flat plate that controls or directs the flow of fluid or energy [syn: baffle board]
v. be a mystery or bewildering to; "This beats me!"; "Got me--I don't know the answer!"; "a vexing problem"; "This question really stuck me" [syn: perplex, vex, stick, get, puzzle, mystify, beat, pose, bewilder, flummox, stupefy, nonplus, gravel, amaze, dumbfound]
hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; "What ultimately frustrated every challenger was Ruth's amazing September surge"; "foil your opponent" [syn: thwart, queer, spoil, scotch, foil, cross, frustrate, bilk]
check the emission of (sound) [syn: regulate]
Wikipedia
A baffle is a tunnel or wall artificially constructed within the heart or great vessels for the purpose of redirecting blood flow in cases of congenital heart defects.
Category:Congenital heart disease
Baffles are flow-directing or obstructing vanes or panels used in some industrial process vessels (tanks), such as shell and tube heat exchangers, chemical reactors, and static mixers. Baffles are an integral part of the shell and tube heat exchanger design. A baffle is designed to support tube bundles and direct the flow of fluids for maximum efficiency.
Baffle or baffles may refer to:
- Baffle (heat transfer), a flow-directing vane or panel in some vessels such as shell and tube heat exchangers, chemical reactors, or static mixers
- Baffle (medicine), a tunnel or wall surgically constructed within the heart or primary blood vessels to redirect blood flow
- Baffles (submarine), the blind spot in a submarine's sonar created by the body of the submarine
- Baffle or All-Star Baffle, a 1973-74 revival of PDQ (game show), where contestants had to guess phrases from a short combination of letters
- Baffle gate, another name for turnstile
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Sound baffle, any object designed to reduce airborne sound
- Components in a loudspeaker enclosure used to negate the out-of-phase sound waves from the rear of the loudspeaker
- Components in a suppressor used to redirect the gas from a gunshot to minimise sound and light
- Squirrel baffle, a device fixed to birdfeeders to prevent access by squirrels and other small mammals
Usage examples of "baffle".
Gwalchmai, while he wore the ring, could understand any language Merlin had known, this strange agglutinative tongue baffled him.
Professor Agrest, a Russian physicist, also maintains that a strange rock platform in Lebanon, whose origin and original purpose have baffled archeologists and geologists for several years, was constructed by aliens as a launching pad.
But for all his skill in the wilds, Alec had always found towns rather baffling.
In his more lucid moments he was relieved at how well Alec was managing, though the fact that the boy had not yet slipped away, despite ample justification and opportunity, continued to baffle him.
It may be apocryphal that some families dressed their piano legs in little skirts to avoid moral distress to visitors, but it is certainly true that chamber-pots came with a crocheted cover to serve as a baffle so that anyone passing without would not hear the unseemly tinkle of the person passing within.
Whatever the fellow might know about the Aureole Mine might solve a problem which, from all appearances, was baffling Morton Selwood.
There, in that moribund, ancient town, wrapped in its siesta, flagellated with heat, deserted, ignored, baking in a noon-day silence, these two strange men, the one a poet by nature, the other by training, both out of tune with their world, dreamers, introspective, morbid, lost and unfamiliar at that end-of-the-century time, searching for a sign, groping and baffled amidst the perplexing obscurity of the Delusion, sat over empty wine glasses, silent with the pervading silence that surrounded them, hearing only the cooing of doves and the drone of bees, the quiet so profound, that at length they could plainly distinguish at intervals the puffing and coughing of a locomotive switching cars in the station yard of Bonneville.
But what baffled both Bering and the officers was the fact that the coast trended, not north, but south.
In case of fighting, the broch would become a slaughterhouse for the baffled enemy, because the only way into the half-towers lay through the main one.
It baffled him, but there was no denying that Capa, a dead man, had been the single most important influence in his life.
Lately, however, Mipps had been baffled by a cerain sort of vagueness in his manner, and yet on thinking it over he realized that this casual preoccupation was accompanied or closely followed by reckless high spirits.
The physiological problem of the explosion of the stinging capsules of the cnidae has always been a baffling one, but that is for scientists to worry about.
After that truly dramatic scene, during which I could guess that the denouement of the play was near at hand, I went to my charming countess, taking care to change my gondola three times--a necessary precaution to baffle spies.
I concluded that to save her would be an action pleasing to God, since God alone could have made her so like my beloved, and God had willed that I should win a good deal of money, and had made me find the Zeroli, who would serve as a shield to my actions and baffle the curiosity of spies.
But it had the elements of a crimeless mystery, a fact that baffled Joe Cardona.