–Why do you wish to marry him? he persisted.
She picked little strips of wood from the box, smiling in her perplexedness. He is my husband, she said, with the word that does not quite mean husband.

1689, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, London: Awnsham & John Churchil, 4th edition, 1700, Book 4, Chapter 8, Section 11, p. 317,
[…] most Writers are so far from instructing us in the Nature and Knowledge of Things, that they use their Words loosly and uncertainly, and do not, by using them constantly and steadily in the same signification, make plain and clear deductions of Words one from another, and make their Discourses coherent and clear, (how little soever it were instructive), which were not difficult to do, did they not find it convenient to shelter their Ignorance or Obstinacy, under the Obscurity and perplexedness of their Terms […]

Perplexedness

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms