bewilderingly
- adverb
- /bɪˈwɪldərɪŋli/
- She found the math problem bewilderingly difficult, struggling to understand even the first step.
- bewilderingly intricate
- bewilderingly complex
Examples
-
How wearily, how bewilderingly they swarm about your path!
Academic text (1997) -
The instructions were delivered in a way that was bewilderingly unclear, leaving everyone confused about what to do.
-
The range of life forms on Marguy's single small continent was bewilderingly diverse, far more so than the standard models would predict.
Fiction book (1998) -
The labyrinth, he wrote, contains passages "that wind, advance, and retreat in a bewilderingly intricate manner."
Academic text (2011) -
For those preferring unclouded pictures, these bewilderingly varied statistical snapshots are as unsatisfying as they are unappetizing.
Academic text (1995) -
It looked even spookier, though, more bewilderingly inexplicable, under the ordinary light of day than it had looked under the garish artificial lighting the night before.
Fiction book (2002) -
The film's plot twists were bewilderingly unexpected, making it hard to follow along.
Synonyms
In a way that makes it hard to understand
It is very hard to understand
In a way that is very hard to understand
In a way that makes people feel uneasy or confused
In a way that is very surprising and hard to understand
In a mysterious way that is hard to understand
In a way that people cannot understand
In a way that makes something hard to understand
In a way that is confusing and hard to understand
In a way that is very confusing and hard to understand
In a way that is confusing and hard to understand
In a way that shows strong annoyance or surprise
How Confusing
Surface Forms
Morphology
bewilderingly = bewildering (transparent) = bewilder + ing + ly
The adverb is formed regularly from the adjective 'bewildering' with '-ly', so the meaning is straightforward.
Etymology
Bewilderingly comes from bewilder, which is be- plus wilder related to wild, where wild means 'out in nature' or 'untamed'. So to be 'bewildered' is like being 'sent into the wild', which makes you feel lost and confused, and bewilderingly describes something that causes that feeling.