Word.ws English Dictionary

nonplussing

nonplussing is the present participle and gerund of nonplus.

Meaning of nonplus

Verb

nonplus (third-person singular simple present nonplusses or nonpluses, present participle nonplussing or nonplusing, simple past and past participle nonplussed or nonplused)

  1. (transitive) To bewilder or perplex (someone); to confound, to flummox.
    • You couldn’t have told it from my manner, but I was feeling more than a bit nonplussed. The spectacle before me was enough to nonplus anyone.1934 October 5, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter II, in Right Ho, Jeeves, London: Herbert Jenkins […], →OCLC, page 24

See all 2 meanings of nonplus

Adjective

nonplussing (comparative more nonplussing, superlative most nonplussing)

  1. (uncommon) Confusing, bewildering, baffling or perplexing.
    • We have to with a Heart ſearching God, who will find out every unworthy Communicant to his utter Shame and Confuſion ; when God examins ſuch, his Queſtions will be Nonpluſſing and Confounding,[…]1716, John Willison, “A Help For The Right Improvement of Communion Sabbaths”, in A Treatise Concerning the Sanctifying of the Lord's Day. And Particularly, The Right Improvement of a...
    • Nothing can be so nonplussing to a seeker as to have to grope about in a fog for the thing sought.1907, William A. Bryce, H. de Vere Stacpoole, “The Reavers: A Tale of Wild Adventure on the Moors of Lorne”, in The Boy's Own Annual, volume 29, In the fog (section XXV), page 803

Forms of nonplussing

comparativemore nonplussing
superlativemost nonplussing

Origin of nonplussing

By surface analysis, nonplus + -ing.

Words formed from nonplussing

Questions about nonplussing

What does nonplussing mean?
Nonplussing means confusing, bewildering, baffling or perplexing.
What is nonplussing the present participle and gerund of?
Nonplussing is the present participle and gerund of nonplus.
What part of speech is nonplussing?
Nonplussing is an adjective.

Words near nonplussing in the dictionary

  1. nonplussed
  2. nonplussedness
  3. nonplusser
  4. nonplussers
  5. nonplusses
  6. nonplussing
  7. nonplussingly
  8. nonplutocratic
  9. nonplutonic
  10. nonplutonium
  11. nonpluvial

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nonplussing (page history and authors); nonplus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “nonplussing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nonplussing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.