Word of the Day for Tuesday July 19, 2005

flummox \FLUM-uhks\, transitive verb:
To confuse; to perplex.

And when a poll's results happen to upset the conventional
wisdom, or confound the experts, or flummox the pundits,
then that's a poll to remember.
--Michael Kagay, "Unexpected Results Make for Memorable
Polls," [1]New York Times, March 23, 2000

The chronological order of the Stuart, Hanover, Lancaster
and Tudor British royal houses had me flummoxed.
--Sara Ivry, "Game Show Wannabe: I Coulda Been a
Millionaire," [2]New York Times, February 27, 2000

Flummoxed by the surreality of history and the
mind-boggling changes unleashed by the 60's, many writers
in that era became minimalists, withdrawing, turtlelike,
inside their own homes and heads.
--Michiko Kakutani, "New Wave of Writers Reinvents
Literature," [3]New York Times, April 22, 2000