flummoxed; flummoxing; flummoxes
: confuse
He was flummoxed by the legal jargon.
a hapless innocent who had been flummoxed by wily city slickers—
Andy Logan
Andy Logan
Did you know?
No one is completely sure where the word flummox comes from, but Charles Dickens was aware of it and used it in his 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers. It became quite common in both British and American English by the end of the 19th century.
Examples of flummox in a Sentence
an actor who's easily flummoxed by any changes in the script
Recent Examples on the Web
On the supply side, many have been flummoxed by the failure of OPEC+’s production increases to dampen price expectations.
—Michael Lynch, Forbes.com, 31 July 2025
This has flummoxed analysts, who are venturing guesses about what’s going on.
—Tobias Burns, The Hill, 27 July 2025
With the game on the line, Bednar threw a four-seamer up, the exact pitch that had flummoxed Stowers most of his career.
—Brittany Ghiroli, New York Times, 8 July 2025
This process revealed entry points into the text that weren’t visible before, obscured by the reader’s first emotional response to the content, or to the experience of being flummoxed.
—Hazlitt, 11 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for flummox
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Michael Lynch, Forbes.com, 31 July 2025
This has flummoxed analysts, who are venturing guesses about what’s going on.
—Tobias Burns, The Hill, 27 July 2025
With the game on the line, Bednar threw a four-seamer up, the exact pitch that had flummoxed Stowers most of his career.
—Brittany Ghiroli, New York Times, 8 July 2025
This process revealed entry points into the text that weren’t visible before, obscured by the reader’s first emotional response to the content, or to the experience of being flummoxed.
—Hazlitt, 11 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for flummox
Cite this Entry
“Flummox.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flummox. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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