[f. prec. vb.]
† 1. Disgrace, affront. Obs.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1726), II. xiv. You will be free from all baffles and affronts.
1692. Bp. Ely, Answ. Touchstone, A iij. It sculkt and durst not show its head, till they imagined that Baffle was forgot.
† 2. A shuffle; quibbling, trifling. Obs.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), A baffle, Nugæ. It is all a baffle, Meræ nugæ sunt.
† 3. Confusion, discomfiture, check. Obs.
1628. Earle, Microcosm., lxiv. 138. Other men’s modesty … rescues him many times from a baffle.
1670. Cotton, Espernon, II. VIII. 373. After this baffle her Army had receiv’d.
a. 1745. Swift, Wks. (1841), II. 72. That slight baffle it received at its first appearance in public.
4. The state of one who is baffled or bewildered.
1843. Foster, in Life & Corr. (1846), II. 458. I remained in a kind of baffle between that perfectly preserved image, and his actual appearance.
5. = BAFFLER. Also attrib.
1881. Echo, 12 Dec., 6/1. There is a fire-brick ‘baffle’ above, on which the hot air is discharged.
1882. Nature, XXV. 220. A kind of baffle plate hung at the back of the grate.
