baffle
To completely confuse someone so they cannot understand something.
To baffle means to completely confuse or puzzle someone. When something baffles you, it leaves you scratching your head, unable to figure it out despite your best efforts. A magic trick might baffle an audience because they can't understand how the magician made the rabbit disappear. A mysterious noise in the attic could baffle your parents until they discover it's just a loose shutter rattling in the wind.
Scientists talk about being baffled by unexplained results in their experiments. Teachers might be baffled when a normally excellent student suddenly struggles with easy material. The word suggests more than just mild confusion: when you're truly baffled, you're stumped, bewildered, at a complete loss for answers.
Something that is baffling creates this sense of puzzlement. A missing airplane that vanishes without clear explanation would be baffling to aviation experts. A baffling problem resists your usual problem-solving strategies and makes you wonder if you're missing something obvious. When detectives investigate a mystery with no clear clues or motives, they describe the case as baffling until they finally discover the missing piece that makes everything clear.