To flummox someone is to confuse or perplex them.

// The actor was easily flummoxed by last-minute changes to the script.

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“If Thursday crosswords flummox you, remember that it’s much better for your stress level to do your best and sharpen your skills than to become angry because you aren’t sure what’s going on.” — Deb Amlen, The New York Times, 11 June 2025

When it comes to the origins of flummox, etymologists are, well, flummoxed. No one really knows where the word comes from. The first known print use of the verb flummox appeared in Charles Dickens’ novel The Pickwick Papers in the mid-1830s, while the adjective flummoxed appeared italicized a few years earlier in a Dublin newspaper article about laborers striking against employers who oppose their rights: “Lord Cloncurry is actually flummoxed. The people refuse to work for him.” To be flummoxed by something is to be utterly confused by it—that is, to be baffled, puzzled, bewildered, completely unable to understand. Fortunately, a word can be used even if everyone is flummoxed by its etymology, and by the end of the 19th century, flummox had become quite common in both British and American English.