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To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." De Quincey. A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. South. Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. Prescott. The mere intricacy of a quest…

Frustrating; discomfiting; disconcerting; as, baffling currents, winds, tasks. -- Bafflingly, adv. -- Bafflingness, n.

A narrow opening, often cruciform, through which arrows might be discharged.

Any solid spherical, cylindrical, or conical projectile of lead or iron, to be discharged from a firearm; as, a cannon ball; a rifball; -- often used collectively; as, powder and ball. Spherical balls for the smaller firearms are commonly called bullets.

he commonplace, in speech. The highest things were thus brought down to the banalities of discourse. J. Morley.

r bright spots are produced upon cloth previously dyed of a uniform red or dark color, by discharging portions of the color by chemical means, while the rest of the cloth is under pressure. Ure.

Being a bankrupt or in a condition of bankruptcy; unable to pay, or legally discharged from paying, one's debts; as, a bankrupt merchant.

An opening in the wall of a fortress, through which missiles were discharged upon an enemy.

A metallic tube, as of a gun, from which a projectile is discharged. Knight.

To abash; to disconcert or be disconcerted or put out of countenance. [Obs.] His countenance was bold and bashed not. Spenser.

Rate of exchange; also, the discount on uncurrent coins. [India]

A number of coated jars (Leyden jars) so connected that they may be charged and discharged simultaneously.

To come to pass; to happen. I have revealed . . . the discord which befell. Milton.

I beg to inform you. -- To bag the question, to assume that which was to be proved in a discussion, instead of adducing the proof or sustaining the point by argument. -- To go a-begging, a figurative phrase to express the absence of demand for something which elsewhere brings a price; as, grapes are so plentiful the…

To manage or govern in point of behavior; to discipline; to handle; to restrain. [Obs.] He did behave his anger ere 't was spent. Shak.

To discharge ordure or dung upon. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

To smirch or soil; to discolor; to obscure. Hence: To dishonor; to sully. Shak.

To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known. Willing to serve or betray any government for hire. Macaulay.

To expose; to reveal; to disclose; to betray. [Obs. or Archaic] The murder being once done, he is in less fear, and in more hope that the deed shall not be bewrayed or known. Robynson (More's Utopia. ) Thy speech bewrayeth thee. Matt. xxvi. 73.

A periodic coment, discovered by Biela in 1826, which revolves around the sun in 6.6 years. The November meteors (Andromedes or Bielids) move in its orbit, and may be fragments of the comet.