Bedevilled


to torment or harass maliciously or diabolically, as with doubts, distractions, or worries.
to possess, as with a devil; bewitch.
to cause confusion or doubt in; muddle; confound:
an issue bedeviled by prejudices.
to beset or hamper continuously:
a new building bedeviled by elevator failures.
Historical Examples

The Filipino constabulary soldiers made fun of them because they wore no trousers, and bedevilled them in various ways.
The Philippines Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2) Dean Conant Worcester

It has already, and I am down and hipped and bedevilled cruelly.
Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II (of II) Edmund Downey

Well now, have you not seen good food so bedevilled by unskilful cookery that no one could be brought to eat the pudding?
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) Robert Louis Stevenson

The very captains in the harbor have been bedevilled by the priests.
A King of Tyre James M. Ludlow

Then he scanned the portier, and glanced round once more at the bedevilled architecture.
A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories William D. Howells

Are you bedevilled with Wentworth’s theory that a man can be both a socialist and a royalist?
The Decadent Ralph Adams Cram

On that day the harried, bedevilled, and despairing government went insane.
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

She is possessed, bedevilled, and she does not belong to the Devil.
La Sorcire: The Witch of the Middle Ages Jules Michelet

They were “bedevilled” by the most intellect-deadening of all the opiates, the Soothing Syrup of Popularity.
My Little Sister Elizabeth Robins

The volunteers, flocking in mass to the front, changed entirely by their bedevilled fury the previous tactics of the war.
The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2 Eugne Sue

verb (transitive) -ils, -illing, -illed (US) -ils, -iling, -iled
to harass or torment
to throw into confusion
to possess, as with a devil
v.

1768, “to treat diabolically, abuse,” from be- + verbal use of devil (q.v.). Meaning “to mischievously confuse” is from 1755; that of “to drive frantic” is from 1823. Related: Bedeviled (1570s, in a literal sense, “possessed”); bedeviling.

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