What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Baffle vs Barrier - What's the difference?

baffle | barrier |

As nouns the difference between baffle and barrier

is that baffle is a device used to dampen the effects of such things as sound, light, or fluid. Specifically, a baffle is a surface which is placed inside an open area to inhibit direct motion from one part to another, without preventing motion altogether while barrier is a structure that bars passage.

As a verb baffle

is to publicly disgrace, especially of a recreant knight.

baffle

English

Verb

(baffl)
  • (obsolete) To publicly disgrace, especially of a recreant knight.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.7:
  • He by the heeles him hung upon a tree, / And baffuld so, that all which passed by / The picture of his punishment might see […].
  • (obsolete) To hoodwink or deceive (someone).
  • (Barrow)
  • To bewilder completely; to confuse or perplex.
  • I am baffled by the contradictions and omissions in the instructions.
  • * Prescott
  • calculations so difficult as to have baffled , until within a recent period, the most enlightened nations
  • * John Locke
  • The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us.
  • * Cowper
  • the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
  • * South
  • a suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all
  • To struggle in vain.
  • A ship baffles with the winds.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A device used to dampen the effects of such things as sound, light, or fluid. Specifically, a baffle is a surface which is placed inside an open area to inhibit direct motion from one part to another, without preventing motion altogether.
  • Tanker trucks use baffles to keep the liquids inside from sloshing around.
  • An architectural feature designed to confuse enemies or make them vulnerable.
  • barrier

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A structure that bars passage.
  • An obstacle or impediment.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty
  • , date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier . But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.}}
  • A boundary or limit.
  • Derived terms

    * barrier reef * color barrier * crash barrier * diffusion-barrier * half-barrier * ice barrier * language barrier * racial barrier * sound barrier * tilt barrier * tire barrier * toll barrier