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To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly; as, to fumble for an excuse. Dryden. My understanding flutters and my memory fumbles. Chesterfield. Alas! how he fumbles about the domains. Wordsworth.

Difficulty; perplexity; embarrassment. Waterton.

The state or quality of being intricate or entangled; perplexity; involution; complication; complexity; that which is intricate or involved; as, the intricacy of a knot; the intricacy of accounts; the intricacy of a cause in controversy; the intricacy of a plot. Freed from intricacies, taught to live The easiest way. M…

To involve, as in difficulty or perplexity; to perplex. [R.] Bp. Hall.

Something not easily solved; an intricacy; a difficulty; a perplexity; a problem. Knots worthy of solution. Cowper. A man shall be perplexed with knots, and problems of business, and contrary affairs. South.

Confusion of thought; perplexity; uncertainty; state of bewilderment.

A state of perplexity or anxiety; confusion; bother; agitation. [Prov. Eng. & Colloq. U. S.]

The state of being puzzled; perplexity; as, to be in a puzzle.

The state of being puzzled; perplexity. Miss Mitford.

A state of difficulty or perplexity; doubt; uncertainty.

To fall into perplexity and confusion. [Obs.] Till, by their own perplexities involved, They ravel more, still less resolved. Milton.

Recurrence in difficulty, perplexity, need, or the like; access or application for aid; resort. Thus died this great peer, in a time of great recourse unto him and dependence upon him. Sir H. Wotton. Our last recourse is therefore to our art. Dryden.

A disagreable and embrassing predicament, as it were, a painful rubbing or scraping; a perplexity; a difficulty. The too eager pursuit of this his old enemy through thick and thin has led him into many of these scrapes. Bp. Warburton.

To catch with a snare; to insnare; to entangle; hence, to bring into unexpected evil, perplexity, or danger. Lest that too heavenly form . . . snare them. Milton. The mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers. Shak.

Bewilderment; perplexity. [R.] Shak. Stomach staggers (Far.), distention of the stomach with food or gas, resulting in indigestion, frequently in death.

A state of perplexity or embarrassment; as, to be at a stand what to do. L'Estrange.

Fig.: A condition of narrowness or restriction; doubt; distress; difficulty; poverty; perplexity; -- sometimes in the plural; as, reduced to great straits. For I am in a strait betwixt two. Phil. i. 23. Let no man, who owns a Providence, grow desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever. South. Ulysses made use of…

Any cause of stumbling, perplexity, or error. We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. 1 Cor. i. 23.

sublimity. [R.] Better, however, to be a flippant, than, by a revolting form of tumor and perplexity, to lead men into habits of intellect such as result from the modern vice of English style. De Quincey. Encysted tumor, a tumor which is inclosed in a membrane called a cyst, connected with the surrounding parts by the…

A pinching condition; perplexity; trouble; distress. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] This put the old fellow in a rare tweague. Arbuthnot.