All 12 Uses of

baffle
in
Look Homeward, Angel

He felt, rather than understood, the waste, the confusion, the blind cruelty of their lives—his spirit was stretched out on the rack of despair and bafflement as there came to him more and more the conviction that their lives could not be more hopelessly distorted, wrenched, mutilated, and perverted away from all simple comfort, repose, happiness, if they set themselves deliberately to tangle the skein, twist the pattern.†
Chpt 1

And thinking of Gant, she felt again an inchoate aching wonder, recalling the savage strife between them, and the great submerged struggle beneath, founded upon the hatred and the love of property, in which she did not doubt of her victory, but which baffled her, foiled her.†
Chpt 1

Suddenly baffled before the yielding inflexibility of her nature, which could be driven to action only after incessant and maddening prods, Eugene, screaming-mad with helpless fury, would understand the cause of Gant's frenzy.†
Chpt 1

With a yell of mingled fear and baffled rage, they turned and fled off toward their canoes.†
Chpt 1

He could find no words, no answers to the puzzles that baffled and maddened him: he found himself loathing that which bore the stamp of virtue, sick with weariness and horror at what was considered noble.†
Chpt 1

And he knew suddenly the joy of obedience: the wild ignorant groping, the blind hunt, the desperate baffled desire was now to be ruddered, guided, controlled.†
Chpt 2

And Eugene noted, with the old baffling shame again, as this cheap tableau of self-conscious, robust, and raucously aggressive boyhood was posed, that, for all the mouthing of phrases, the jargon about fair play and sportsmanship, the weaker, at Leonard's, was the legitimate prey of the stronger.†
Chpt 2

Then, his boiling fury unappeased, and baffled by fear of inflicting some crippling punishment on the boy, he added illogically: "Stand up!" and jerked him to his feet again.†
Chpt 2

Murderous impotent, baffled—a maniacal anger against her groped for an outlet in him, sometimes exploding in a wild inchoate scream.†
Chpt 2

He had been baffled for years by the passionate enigma of their dislike—their tenders of warmth and affection, when they came, were strange to him: he accepted them gratefully and with a surprise he did not wholly conceal.†
Chpt 3

But when Eliza refused to reveal her own investments, the girl would cry out in a baffled hysteria: "She has no right to do that!†
Chpt 3

Definitions:

(1) (baffle as in: baffled her)
to perplex or confuse someone
(2) (baffle as in: acoustic baffle)
something constructed to control the flow of sound or fluid
(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Less commonly:
- baffle can refer to the hindering of efforts, plans, or desires.
- baffles can describe the area directly behind a moving vessel where water is disturbed
- baffle has other technical uses relating to medicine, heat transfer, and mechanics