Third person singular present tense of befuddle; confuses or bewilders someone so they can't think clearly.
From befuddle, combining be- (causative prefix) + fuddle (to confuse), which comes from Middle English fudel. The 'be-' prefix was added in the 1600s to intensify the meaning of fuddle.
The 'be-' prefix is like a linguistic amplifier—adding it to a word makes the action more intense or complete. English speakers used this trick constantly in the 1600s-1800s to turn simple verbs into powerfully descriptive ones.
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