perplexity

UK/pəˈplɛksɪti/US/pəɹˈplɛksəti/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: perplexities

Perplexity is the state of being puzzled and unsure. You have looked at it from every side and it still makes no sense.

It takes at or over. The word is formal and describes genuine bafflement rather than mild confusion, so gazing at something in perplexity is a whole expression. There is a technical sense in language modelling where perplexity measures how well a model predicts a sample, which is a long way from the everyday word. The adjective perplexed is far commoner.

Definitions of perplexity

1nounperplexityA state of being puzzled and unable to understand.C1
“He stared at the form in complete perplexity.”

Where it comes from

Perplexity is a tangle. Latin perplexus meant thoroughly entangled, so the perplexed person is caught in a knot rather than merely ignorant.

Latin
perplexitās
Middle French
perplexité
Middle English
perplexite
English, today
perplexity

Built from

perplexus · Latin — entangled

From Middle English perplexite, borrowed from Middle French perplexité or post-classical Latin perplexitās, from perplexus (“entangled”). by surface analysis, en + perplex + ity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

perplexity in the wild

Stuart's cavalry withdrew and arrived at Gettysburg on the second day of the battle, to the perplexity and annoyance of General Robert E.
Battle of Carlisle
A practical joke, also known as a prank or trolling, is a trick played on people, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, discomfort, or irritation.
Practical joke
In information theory, perplexity is a measurement of how well a probability distribution or probability model predicts a sample.
Perplexity
A low perplexity indicates the probability distribution is good at predicting the sample.
Perplexity
Perowne states that until "recently", Hadrach had causedmuch perplexity to commentators.
Hadrach

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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