perplex
verb
Simple meaning
To cause to feel baffled.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
perplehksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɚpˈlɛks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To cause to feel baffled; to puzzle.
transitive
To involve; to entangle; to make intricate or complicated.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To involve; to entangle; to make intricate or complicated.
Used this way, perplex is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Confusing or complicated
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Full of difficulty or confusion or bewilderment.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to cause to feel baffled
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.