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# perplexity

«perplexity» in Mova's school dictionary: **a state of being puzzled and not knowing what to think or do** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (plural perplexities)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Perplexity is a state of being puzzled and not knowing what to think or do. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/#m1)

2) (formal) A puzzling thing or problem. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

in stories a hero feels great perplexity when something strange happens; in lessons it names the feeling of being stuck on a hard question

### examples

- He stood in great perplexity, unable to work out the answer. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/#x1)
- To her perplexity, the door would not open. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/#x2)
- The puzzle caused him much perplexity. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/#x3)

### note

nothing for maths; perplexity is a feeling and changes no count.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «perplexity» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/perplexity/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.