MYSTIFY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Mystify

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/mˈɪstəfˌaɪ/ Listen

verb

Mystify v. t. (past & past part. mystified; pres. part. mystifying)

To involve in mystery; to make obscure or difficult to understand; as, to mystify a passage of Scripture.

To perplex the mind of; to puzzle; to impose upon the credulity of; to baffle; as, to mystify an opponent. "He took undue advantage of his credulity and mystified him exceedingly."

See images of 'Mystify'

Etymology of 'Mystify'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Mystify" Quotes from Famous Books

... the first time that people of the forest had paused on the hill at twilight to look down on Bradleyburg. The sight always seemed to intrigue and mystify the wild folk,—the shadowed street, the spire of the moldering church ghostly in the half-light, the long row of unpainted shacks, and the dim, pale gleam of an occasional lighted window. The old bull ...

— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... 1868. Instead of this, all was equivocation. The Derbyite, as was well said, was protectionist in a county, neutral in a small town, free trader in a large one. He was for Maynooth in Ireland, and against it in Scotland. Mr. Disraeli did his best to mystify the agricultural elector by phrases about set-offs and compensations and relief of burdens, 'seeming to loom in the future.' He rang the changes on mysterious new principles of taxation, but what ...

— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... views he would have about himself and life! Would he think himself an abstract intelligence, out of space and time? What a riddle his physical sensations would be to him! Or, suppose him to meet with another being brought up in the same way; how they would mystify each other! Would they learn to feel shame, love, hate? or do the passions only grow in sunshine? Would they ever laugh? Would they hatch plots against each other, lie, deceive? Would they have secrets ...

— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... public had faded. The English are now suppressing our reports on the successes of our submarines and our statements as to submarine losses; they dare not make public the amount of tonnage sunk, but mystify the public with shipping statistics which have given rise to general annoyance in the English Press itself. The English Government lets its people go on calmly trusting to the myth that instead of six U-boats ...

— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... time pass heavily with them, and they revenged their own ennui on all around them. How he would snub the old man for the son's pretensions, and sneer at the young man for his disproportioned ambition; and last of all, how he would mystify poor Kate, till she never knew whether he cared to fatten calves and turkeys, or was simply drawing her on to little details, which he was to dramatise one day in an ...

— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

More quotes...