To muffle or wrap up; to cover thickly or smother.
From 'be-' combined with 'muffle' (from Old French 'moufle', meaning a glove or covering). The 'be-' prefix intensifies the muffling action.
While 'muffle' survives today, 'bemuffle' is extinct—yet the word captures something interesting: you can still hear 'bemuffled' in rare historical texts describing things bundled up against cold, showing how one form outlived the others.
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