[f. as prec. + -MENT.]
1. Possession by an evil spirit.
1861. A. Clington, Fr. O’Donnel, 25. Whatever bedevilment seized me, I let some of it [opium] spill into his punch.
1878. P. Robinson, My Ind. Gard., 18. Are not these unequivocal signs of bedevilment?
2. Maddening or bewildering trouble.
1844. Dickens, Lett. (1880), I. 132. The greater chance of no such bedevilment happening to me.
1882. Rossetti, in Hall Caine, Recoll., 273. Bedevilments thicken: the Garden is ploughed up.
3. Maddening confusion or disorder.
1843. Blackw. Mag., LIII. 361. The confusion and bedevilment was ten times worse.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., viii. (D.). The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment.
1861. Sala, Tw. round Clock, 87. What a chaos of cash debtor, contra creditor … brokerage, agio, tare and tret, dock warrants, and general commercial be-devilment!
