BEMUSE: 1: to make confused 2: to occupy the attention of: absorb 3: to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement
In 1735, the British poet Alexander Pope lamented eing besieged by "a parson much bemus'd in beer." Pope meant that the parson, apparently one of a horde of world-be poets who plagued him with requests that he read their verses, had found his muse - his inspiration - in beer. That use of "bemus'd" harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of "Poets...irrecoverabley Be-mus'd," both uses referring to the Muses of Greek legend. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted "bemus'd in beer" as meaning "left confused by beer," and their confusion gave rise to one modern sense of "bemused."
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