… he was fumbling with the sheets, and looking down at them with a slightly bemused expression as though the stuff before him was in a foreign language … Robert Penn Warren
2
: lost in thought or reverie
… as distant and bemused as a Professor Emeritus listening to the prattling of his freshman class. Michael Straight
3
: having or showing feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing
This is not another of those now popular books about a bemused outsider's sojourn in rural France, brimming with colorful locals and heart-warming anecdotes. J. D. McClatchy
Recent Examples on the WebOn the whole, however, the humor is more bemused smirk than belly laugh. Katie Rife, Rolling Stone, 5 Aug. 2022 The bands played to empty fields or bemused villagers. Vic Chiang, Washington Post, 26 July 2022 When Spacey left the Old Bailey about 30 minutes following the hearing to get into a waiting car, a larger crowd was outside, including several bemused members of the public who just happened to be passing by. Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 July 2022 Give me ladies in day hats with drinking problems all day long, yelling at their bemused and thematically underdeveloped husbands. Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 10 June 2022 If Season One was a promising first draft, its follow-up was a polished, ready-to-sell manuscript, with a bemused yet affectionate focus on the testy mother-daughter, mentor-protegee relationship between Deborah and Ava. Inkoo Kang, Washington Post, 1 July 2022 The bitter and bemused notes that still make reading the literature of polar exploration so bracing derive from the scale of the explorers’ previous expectations. Adam Gopnik, Town & Country, 17 June 2022 Instead, Shields was left to measure the aspirations and achievements of later generations of political figures, typically couching his views with bemused sense of humor, brushed with the disappointment of reality. Matt Schudel, BostonGlobe.com, 18 June 2022 At the top, the two agree to fight as a bemused river god looks on.Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2022 See More