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bemused
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  • Neither of them smiled much—they greeted Michael and me with the bemused curiosity to which I was getting accustomed.†   (source)
  • Rasheed regarded the Taliban with a forgiving, affectionate kind of bemusement, as one might regard an erratic cousin prone to unpredictable acts of hilarity and scandal.†   (source)
  • She shook her head in bemusement.†   (source)
  • Constance shook her head bemusedly, though clearly she was delighted, and as she clambered back into her chair she handed him the little box he'd sent for.†   (source)
  • He arched his eyebrows and smiled a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • In the south, the stegosaur was swinging its spiked tail, warily circling the baby tyrannosaur, which watched it, bemused, and occasionally lunged forward to nip ineffectually at the spikes.†   (source)
  • Daddy sat there with a kind of bemused look on his face.†   (source)
  • They felt watched by their bemused childhood selves.†   (source)
  • "No," Ned had told him, bemused.†   (source)
  • I glance up to find them staring at me in matching bemusement.†   (source)
  • And it is no accident that we should be so bemused.†   (source)
  • Deep rumblings of bemusement came from the guard.†   (source)
  • This was a different, more affable energy, with the pills: a combination of sluggishness and brightness, a bemused, goofy, floating quality.†   (source)
  • Carla watches my antics in the mirror, amused and bemused at the same time.†   (source)
  • There's humming, and strumming, and looking bemused.†   (source)
  • He offered the same little bow, and for a bemused instant Wendy thought he would kiss her hand.†   (source)
  • "That road," said our mother, bemused, gesturing with a lazy bent wrist out the window.†   (source)
  • The doctor looked up from his grim work with a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • He seemed bemused by my casual reference to his secret realities.†   (source)
  • No one talks to him and comes away bemused.†   (source)
  • Zeitoun's father would likely be both proud and bemused by the trajectory of his son's life.†   (source)
  • He accepted my apology with a bemused kiss on the nose.†   (source)
  • Two bemused-looking cats and three ragged crows picked themselves out of the dirt and watched him run past.†   (source)
  • "The Ace of Cups," Dorothea said, sounding bemused.†   (source)
  • I could not see, then, how I might press on with this bantering; in fact, I decided it best to call a halt to the matter and, pretending to remember something I had urgently to attend to, excused myself, leaving my employer looking rather bemused.†   (source)
  • He looked a little bemused as I slid the paper toward him.†   (source)
  • Boney asked, a bemused smile on her face.†   (source)
  • Clarke gave her a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • She shot me a bemused smile as if to say, You do what you have to do to pay the rent.†   (source)
  • I was bemused with the thing itself, and the way it looked.†   (source)
  • Glancing back, Cal saw Quinn standing behind lane one, her coat open and a bemused expression on her face as she watched Myers, graceful as a hippo in toe shoes, make his approach and release his lucky red ball.†   (source)
  • He felt, he said, as though he hung in the air before his patient, "suspended by her sympathy and bemusement."†   (source)
  • Jean Louise followed, bemused and faintly annoyed.†   (source)
  • The idea bemused Eragon, but he also found it rather sad to think of the pretty grass ship wandering among the clouds for the rest of eternity, with none but birds for company.†   (source)
  • She looked at me again, bemused.†   (source)
  • Sana looks between us, bemused.†   (source)
  • When Katie's startled gaze met hers, Jo seemed bemused.†   (source)
  • He was impressed with his wife and bemused by the situation.†   (source)
  • A boy named Hussein, a small and perpetually bemused Meskhetian Turk with big eyes set wide apart near his temples, was skipping and thrashing his arms comically to the amusement of his teammates.†   (source)
  • He was puzzled, bemused, but then he was standing with his hand resting on her shoulder and they were moving on the lawn to the thin strains of the music, the background of rushing cars.†   (source)
  • The long day above ground, the close, overgrown combe, the frightening story in which they had been absorbed, the sudden appearance of the fox, the shock of Bigwig's inexplicable adventure—all these, following one upon another, had flooded their spirits and left them dull and bemused.†   (source)
  • "Absolutely," Caroline told her, in her art major voice, and I felt a rush suddenly of how much I missed Wes, wishing he was there to exchange a look with me, a bemused smile, raising his eyebrows.†   (source)
  • Sister Platte had been bemused: "Pop that thing?"†   (source)
  • To the bemused surprise of their American counterparts, they were forced to decline repeated invitations to the Pigeon's wardroom.†   (source)
  • Felicity is looking at me in a bemused way.†   (source)
  • He seemed to look out on the world from on high with subtle bemusement, as if everything smaller people did was slightly funny.†   (source)
  • He sounds bemused.†   (source)
  • He smiled up at the judge, bemused.†   (source)
  • Yossarian flipped his eyes open in alarm and saw the totally unexpected bulging black puffs of flak crashing down in toward them from high up and Aarfy's complacent melon-round tiny-eyed face gazing out at the approaching cannon bursts with affable bemusement.†   (source)
  • Across from him at the narrow table, James Davis lifts his nose from calculus homework to watch, visibly bemused, the spectacle of Cedric trying to look "baaaad."†   (source)
  • A voice—familiar, cold, somewhat bemused.†   (source)
  • She gives a very slight nod, and I frown in bemusement.†   (source)
  • "Well, come in, both of you," said Dr. Martinez, sounding excited and bemused and awestruck.†   (source)
  • Seivarden, spoon in hand, watched her, bemused.†   (source)
  • He stood up front beside a microphone, his feet planted solidly on the dirty canvas-covered platform, looking from side to side; his posture dignified and benign, like a bemused father listening to the performance of his adoring children.†   (source)
  • He always felt a bit bemused when he went into the apartment: twenty-one rooms, of which only three were furnished.†   (source)
  • The calf took him from one end of the corral to the other and back again while the other calves stood bemused.†   (source)
  • She looked from me to Petra, then slowly, bemusedly, back to me again.†   (source)
  • Nigel stood near him looking bemused while Miss Awolowo shielded a tall, plump red-haired girl from the onrush of a petite black-haired girl who stabbed an accusatory finger while muttering in her native language.†   (source)
  • Bemused'is another one, People seem to think it means amused, rather than bewildered or preoccupied.†   (source)
  • He simply looked bemused and interested in the novelty of Pig's stance.†   (source)
  • Hungerford, a portly and distinguished looking man of about fifty, spoke to the room, rather than directly to Tappan, through a bemused grin.†   (source)
  • The expression on his face is one of bemused curiosity: these people are unfathomable, but then so are most.†   (source)
  • There were glances and bemused stares but no one seemed to care much about my presence as I went from one group to the next.†   (source)
  • His expression changed to one of bemusement.†   (source)
  • Bemused, he stared.†   (source)
  • Which was why he was looking at the Skil-Saw in his hand in bemusement.†   (source)
  • GUIL (bemused): The toenails never grow at all?†   (source)
  • He remained as hardy as a billygoat, which brought him under the bemused scrutiny of the SS doctors and, in a roundabout way, to the attention of floss.†   (source)
  • The hideous vision had seemed so real to him, half bemused as he was still with wound and fear.†   (source)
  • I was so bemused by it that I had to be reminded to take the platoon out of "freeze" — then I withdrew the ground listeners from the crater, pulled two men from each squad and gave them bearings from that infernal map to have them listen along the Bug highway and over the town.†   (source)
  • "We'll have a house together some time," Aron said, bemused.†   (source)
  • And sitting in his office in Buffalo, giving in once more to bemused staring, eyes passing over his closely reasoned, now meaningless page, he knew what it was about it that was weird.†   (source)
  • They stood bemused by the darkness.†   (source)
  • She appeared gentler, more bemused than before, when old Mrs. Eckhart made Parnell Moody cry, just by looking at Parnell too hard.†   (source)
  • So George Hadley, bemused, sat watching the dining-room table produce warm dishes of food from its mechanical interior.†   (source)
  • The five of us followed them to the checkout counter, and I watched in disbelief as the woman, seeming a bit bemused, took out her wallet and paid for Angel's bear.   (source)
    bemused = perplexed or confused
  • They all sat still, all bemused by the beauty of the thing, each mind was popped into the future when this lovely thing should come about.   (source)
    bemused = deep in thought
  • Ron shook his head, bemused, then checked his watch.†   (source)
  • Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times in a bemused sort of way.†   (source)
  • "Well," said Richard a little bemused, "you've got to give that old Frenchman credit.†   (source)
  • 'Help yourself,' said Harry, feeling slightly bemused.†   (source)
  • My words startled Deoch into bemused laugher.†   (source)
  • What was that line from Yeats, about the bemused Chinese sages?†   (source)
  • The doctor nodded, but looked a little bemused.†   (source)
  • Ron, however, looked bemused by their surprise.†   (source)
  • Frieda and I were bemused, irritated, and fascinated by her.†   (source)
  • 'Dangerous?' said Hagrid, looking genially bemused.†   (source)
  • Malfoy fell backward on top of the Death Eater, his mouth bleeding, utterly bemused.†   (source)
  • It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," Harry told a com-pletely bemused Mrs. Cattermole.†   (source)
  • 'But I don't think you're ugly,' said Harry, bemused.†   (source)
  • But as Ron continued to look bemused, a strange thought occurred to Harry.†   (source)
  • Sorry,I responded absently, bemused by the fact that she had used my name for the first time.†   (source)
  • Felicity repeats with a bemused expression.†   (source)
  • But both Andrew and his father are looking over at her, bemused smiles on their faces.†   (source)
  • She caught Boyle watching her, a bemused smile on his face.†   (source)
  • She pushed a sweaty lock of hair back from her forehead, equal parts flustered and bemused.†   (source)
  • She was watching me, a bemused little smile on her face.†   (source)
  • He let her go, his face soft, bemused with grief and amazement.†   (source)
  • Nigel and his wife exchanged bemused glances.†   (source)
  • Jocelyn looked up, her expression bemused.†   (source)
  • A bemused expression replaced her scowl.†   (source)
  • Bemused, Renly said, "It would seem the direwolf is gentler than the lion."†   (source)
  • Amanda watched all of it as a casual observer might, a bemused smile lighting up her face.†   (source)
  • He strolled toward me, his expression bemused.†   (source)
  • She looked down at the curled-up figure with a bemused and bitter pity.†   (source)
  • "How much are we going to get paid for it?" the chief financial officer asked, still bemused.†   (source)
  • Oscar took the cutter from Lorenzo while Luis watched from across the room with a bemused grin.†   (source)
  • I break off, panting slightly, and there's a bemused silence.†   (source)
  • "So Katarina and I are hostages?" she asked, obviously bemused.†   (source)
  • Appearing somewhat bemused, Nasuada shook her head.†   (source)
  • Hester/Anne was bemused but didn't interfere.†   (source)
  • "Etiquette's really smoothed out all the rough edges, hasn't it?" said Nigel, bemused.†   (source)
  • Anaander Mianaai listened to all this, bemused.†   (source)
  • The door slams, and Cedric leans back in his chair, bemused, shaking his freshly shaven head.†   (source)
  • I don't get it," Caroline said, bemused.†   (source)
  • D'Ablo flicked his eyes to Ignatius and back, a bemused smile on his lips.†   (source)
  • She ceased, leaving me somewhat bemused.†   (source)
  • Sarah watched it all with a bemused smile, enjoying their interaction.†   (source)
  • What sort of cheap conjurer's trick is this?" asked Rasmussen, bemused.†   (source)
  • "Hi, Dr. Korb," Cedric says with a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • She was smiling at them, sad and bemused as if they were already dead.†   (source)
  • As Connor disappeared up the stairs, David shot Max a bemused glance.†   (source)
  • D'Ablo met his eyes with a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • Luis watched in bemused silence, a slight grin on his face.†   (source)
  • Bellagrog merely watched him with a bemused expression.†   (source)
  • Are you giving me your permission?" his father asked, bemused.†   (source)
  • When he had finished, David gave a bemused smile.†   (source)
  • But to Gabriella, the faces here on deck appeared bemused enough.†   (source)
  • Now, this one here …. yes, my dear?" said Slughorn, now looking slightly bemused, as Hermione's hand punched the air again.†   (source)
  • And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Harry, wearing a bemused expression.†   (source)
  • They flitted in and out of my life like well-timed stage actors, one going out the door as the other came in, and on the rare occasions when they both inhabited the same room, they seemed somewhat bemused at the situation.†   (source)
  • Clary watched him go, bemused.†   (source)
  • The rear end of the Cadillac pulled ahead of him, still cutting in, and the workman stared with bemused horror as the long, rocket-shaped rear taillights cut into his lane no more than a quarter of an inch in front of his bumper.†   (source)
  • Ty expanded into a bemused host, dishing up seconds for everyone and teasing Pammy and Linda, who ate everything they were given without complaint.†   (source)
  • Max looked bemused, but before Clary could explain, Isabelle burst through the door, clearly out of breath.†   (source)
  • Her bemused 1,522 eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand.†   (source)
  • "Excuse me," His Highness says to the bemused painter, "b-b-but could you p-p-please tell me-was I headed toward the palace or away from the p-p-palace?"†   (source)
  • At last, when the Irish team had left the box to perform another lap of honor on their brooms (Aidan Lynch on the back of Confolly's, clutching hard around his waist and still grinning in a bemused sort of way), Bagman pointed his wand at his throat and muttered, "Quietus.†   (source)
  • I lay there for a long time, panting with relief and also with a strange disappointment that the truth hadn't come out, distantly bemused that this was the conclusion he drew from the last five months, from Rose's operation, from the transfer, from Jess Clark, and Rose's revelations and my fresh memories.†   (source)
  • Martin glanced behind him, as if wanting to include absent friends on the joke, then back with another bemused shrug—"sorry.†   (source)
  • They were bemused to watch pieces of paper flitting about the room as if it were the floor of a stock exchange.†   (source)
  • But then noticing the mirthful expression on my face, they broke into a laugh, though in a somewhat bemused fashion.†   (source)
  • I asked, bemused.†   (source)
  • I'd never been around Mr. Barbour when he was off his medicine (Andy, typically, had been restrained in describing his father's "enthusiasms," I didn't then know about the episodes where he'd tried to telephone the Secretary of State or wear his pyjamas to work); and his rage was so out of character for the bemused and inattentive Mr. Barbour I knew that all I could do was fall back, in shame.†   (source)
  • Suffice it to say that at the Boyarsky's second seating, the customers were shocked, bemused, and beside themselves once again as slips of paper flew about the dining room like pheasants at the crack of a rifle.†   (source)
  • Hermione looked simply bemused.†   (source)
  • With expressions ranging from curious to bemused, the forty-four other attendees pushed back their chairs and approached the great windows overlooking Theatre Square, where Malyshev was already standing.†   (source)
  • They had almost reached the Manse when Max noticed someone sitting on the edge of the fountain at its steps, watching their approach with a bemused expression.†   (source)
  • The figure was sitting on a raised throne and seemed bemused as he listened to a long line of petitioners—crowned kings and bearded scholars lugging carts of astronomical equipment and alchemical contraptions.†   (source)
  • Not only were two guys standing nearby now completely absorbed in checking out her chest, but Dexter was sliding in beside me, a bemused look on his face.†   (source)
  • We made it,he said, bemused.†   (source)
  • I was so bemused by the carefree whistler, I didn't realize at first that the abandoned building was right where the address I was looking for should exist.†   (source)
  • The gunslinger laughed, bemused.†   (source)
  • Later, sitting down to smoke on an empty lard tin, still bemused by God's curse and the terrible burden his own kind had of elevating Ham's sons, he suddenly became alarmed by the thought that the corpse in this heat would have a terrible odor, which might get into the fabric of his woolen cloth.†   (source)
  • Walker and Archer had started moving again; bemused, Simon followed them as they crossed the courtyard and stopped a few feet from where the woman sat.†   (source)
  • His last image was of Sarah standing out in the school yard, waving at the retreating car with a faintly bemused smile on her face.†   (source)
  • He stuck his hand out, and Jace took his own hand out of Clary's and shook Simon's, a bemused look on his face.†   (source)
  • Bemused by the coincidence, Eragon sauntered over to the bronze sculpture and gazed up at the bear's gleaming fangs, wondering what had drawn him back.†   (source)
  • Kyle seemed constantly bemused, too distracted by this impossible relationship he couldn't quite wrap his head around to pay attention to much else.†   (source)
  • I am to be the first, he thought, knowing it for the first time, although he had thought of it(in a bemused way) many times before.†   (source)
  • In ones and twos the does, utterly bemused and scarcely able to move or to understand what was said to them, were urged into getting up and stumbling their way down the field.†   (source)
  • One year King Robert's brother came to visit and she did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused than inflamed by her overtures.†   (source)
  • Then a questioning, half-bemused expression flitted across the sentry's face, and he fell to the ground like a dropped stone.†   (source)
  • Aro's eyes were bemused.†   (source)
  • She looks at me with bemused eyes.†   (source)
  • I look over, thinking it must be Keenan, but instead see a young man with a somewhat bemused expression on his face.†   (source)
  • She sounded bemused by his curiosity.†   (source)
  • He seemed bemused.†   (source)
  • Back in the Honeycomb, Groundsel immediately surrendered himself and his fugitives to Fiver, who was still bemused from his long trance, and scarcely restored to his senses sufficiently to grasp what was toward.†   (source)
  • The West Indian women and some of the Spanish mamis expressed disgust; the born-agains made outraged noises; and the middle-class white women looked bemused or nervous.†   (source)
  • The gunslinger drifted, bemused.†   (source)
  • Prusias glanced at the weapon, bemused.†   (source)
  • David leaned back, bemused.†   (source)
  • And while they were still looking, bemused with this empty curiosity, they felt themselves drawn away, and walked with their mother past the closed piano into the Green Room.†   (source)
  • Sophie, watching him, heard him say "…. diese unertragliche Sprache" in a bemused tone, twisting his lips to fit some of the obdurately unpronounceable words of this "impossible language," quickly give up the effort and then rise to his feet.†   (source)
  • What bemused Sophie at a later date was how this concept of Lebensborn—which in Warsaw so horrified her and sickened her with fear that she often hid her son, Jan, in a closet at the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairway—became at Auschwitz something she dreamed about and most feverishly desired.†   (source)
  • No, against all dictates of conscience and the Calvinist work ethic, and despite ,the fact that I was far from tired, I lay flat on my back in bed, immobilized like one near prostration, bemused in the realization that the fever which I had run for these recent days had caused my muscles to twitch, and that one could actually be taken ill, perhaps seriously so, with venereal ecstasy.†   (source)
  • His eyes fixed on her with a look of dazed bemusement.†   (source)
  • From your perspective today, Kathy, your bemusement is perfectly reasonable.†   (source)
  • Out in the hallway, she touched her cheek in bemusement.†   (source)
  • He looked at me with complete bemusement.†   (source)
  • Mama indulged Madaline, smiling through her stories with a look of wry bemusement, but I knew she thought unkindly of her.†   (source)
  • "Yes —yes, we are," said Dedalus Diggle, who had been watching these exchanged with an air of bemusement and now seemed to pull himself together.†   (source)
  • When the Overlook opens officially (there was a gigantic and hugely successful party there some time ago when the actual work was finished), the newly painted, papered, and decorated rooms will be occupied by a stellar guest list, ranging from Chic designer Corbat Stani to… Smiling bemusedly, Jack turned the page.†   (source)
  • They were filled with people now, row on row of vampires with their dead-white faces, their red stretched mouths, staring bemusedly downward.†   (source)
  • Thanks for that," he said bemusedly, tucking his gun under his arm and beginning to pluck and fumble with the string, which Boris had tied in an obstinate little knot.†   (source)
  • There were three of them, two lazy-walking middle-aged men drifting along a bit bemusedly with the air of having come to do us a favor—it was Boris they were addressing, not me, they seemed glad to see him —and, skittering slightly in front of them, the Asian boy.†   (source)
  • The group mind was such (private jokes and bemusement, everyone clustered round vacation videos on the iPhone) that it was hard to imagine any of them going to a movie by themselves or eating alone at a bar; sometimes, the affable sense of committee among the men particularly gave me the slight feeling of being interviewed for a job.†   (source)
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