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Entry 8 senses · 3 variants Webster, 1913

Baffle

/(băf"f'l)/ · Baf·fle · IPA /ˈbæf(ə)l/
01 v. t. To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight.
imp. & p. p. Baffled; p. pr. & vb. n. Baffling
  1. 1.
    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.
  2. 2.
    To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil.
    “The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim.” — Cowper.
  3. 3.
    To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart.
    “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.
Phrases & compounds
Baffling wind — one that frequently shifts from one point to another.
Syn. To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.
02 v. i. To practice deceit.
  1. 1.
    To practice deceit.[Obs.]
  2. 2.
    To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds.[R.]
03 n. A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture.
  1. 1.
    A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture.[R.]
  2. 2.
    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.(Engin.)
  3. 3.
    A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine.(Coal Mining) [Local, U. S.]