All 6 Uses

baffle
in
The Goldfinch
(Edited)

The grandeur and desolation of the space baffled me —the high, rare, loft of it, layered with gradations of smoke, and billowing with a tangled, tent-like effect where the ceiling (or the sky) ought to be.
p. 34.2

baffled = perplexed
There were a lot of tantrums and pouting, a lot of eye rolling and hostile giggling on Kitsey's part, as well as a baffling (to me) upset—never fully resolved —where she complained to her friends and the housekeepers and anyone who would listen that I'd been going in her room and messing around with the piggy-bank collection on the shelf above her desk.
p. 101.3

baffling = perplexing (not understood)
"But—it wasn't like that," I said, baffled.
p. 138.9

baffled = not understanding
I was so baffled by this that I didn't even know how to reply.
p. 326.9 *

baffled = confused
—but what seemed to baffle Xandra most was not his extreme drunkenness (he'd been virtually unconscious at the wheel) but the location of the accident—outside Vegas, heading west, into the desert.
p. 340.6

baffle = bewilder or confuse
I was baffled.
p. 380.7

baffled = perplexed or confused

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)
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