Baffle word meaning and definition

[noun] a flat plate that controls or directs the flow of fluid or energy
[verb] be a mystery or bewildering to; "This beats me!"; "Got me--I don't know the answer!"; "a vexing problem"
[verb] check the emission of (sound)
[verb] hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; "What ultimately frustrated every challenger was Ruth's amazing September surge"; "foil your opponent"

\Baf"fle\ (b[a^]f"f'l), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Baffled} (-f'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. {Baffling} (-fl[i^]ng).] [Cf. Lowland Scotch bauchle to treat contemptuously, bauch tasteless, abashed, jaded, Icel. b[=a]gr uneasy, poor, or b[=a]gr, n., struggle, b[ae]gja to push, treat harshly, OF. beffler, beffer, to mock, deceive, dial. G. b["a]ppe mouth, beffen to bark, chide.] 1. To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. [Obs.] He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see. --Spenser. 2. To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil. The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim. --Cowper. 3. To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. ``A baffled purpose.'' --De Quincey. A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. --South. Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. --Prescott. The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us. --Locke. {Baffling wind} (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another. Syn: To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.
\Baf"fle\, v. i. 1. To practice deceit. [Obs.] --Barrow. 2. To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. [R.]
\Baf"fle\, n. A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. [R.] ``A baffle to philosophy.'' --South.
\Baf"fle\, n. 1. (Engin.)
(a) A deflector, as a plate or wall, so arranged across a furnace or boiler flue as to mingle the hot gases and deflect them against the substance to be heated.
(b) A grating or plate across a channel or pipe conveying water, gas, or the like, by which the flow is rendered more uniform in different parts of the cross section of the stream; -- used in measuring the rate of flow, as by means of a weir. 2. (Coal Mining) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine. [Local, U. S.]

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