Mysteries of vernacular: Bewilder - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel

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The history of the word bewilder is more straightforward than you might think. Roots can be traced back to the Old English words wilde (undomesticated) and deor (untamed animals), eventually combined into the word wilderness. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel track bewilder's etymological path from meaning natural states to complete confusion.

Lesson by Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel, animation by Jessica Oreck.

Mysteries of vernacular:

Bewilder, to confuse or puzzle completely.

The root of the word bewilder

can be traced back to the Old English word wilde,

which was used to refer to something

that was in a natural state,

uncultivated,

or undomesticated.

Over time, the word wild was often linked

to the Old English word deor.

Deor, which was derived

from an early Indo-European root

that meant breathe,

was initially used to describe

any untamed animal or beast.

This eventually morphed into the modern word deer,

meaning a ruminant of the family Cervidae.

The two Old English words,

when mashed together,

became wilderness,

meaning a tract of uncultivated land,

primarily inhabited by undomesticated beasts.

From the word wilderness,

the word wilder was born.

To wilder someone was to lead him astray

or lure him into the woods.

In the 1600's, the prefix be,

meaning thoroughly,

was compounded with wilder

as a way of tacking on a little extra punch.

Someone who was bewildered

was thoroughly lost in the wild.

From this winding background,

bewilder eventually evolved into our current definition,

to be completely confused.