What's the difference between amuse and bemuse?

Amuse


Definition:

  • (v.) To occupy or engage the attention of; to lose in deep thought; to absorb; also, to distract; to bewilder.
  • (v.) To entertain or occupy in a pleasant manner; to stir with pleasing or mirthful emotions; to divert.
  • (v.) To keep in expectation; to beguile; to delude.
  • (v. i.) To muse; to mediate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It was amusing: he's still working away and this picture of him is hanging in a gallery somewhere.
  • (2) Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver is amusing himself by trying to take a puff of a cigar in his saddle.
  • (3) Students have been amused by the amount of public response to this action.
  • (4) But she is determined to reassert her authority and appears not to have been amused by the remark.
  • (5) In La Shish, the beloved local halal restaurant where Wanda Beydoun has worked a minimum wage managing job for 16 years, these stereotypes are a source of amusement.
  • (6) In a tent for those recovering, a talkative man wearing a heavy gold chain played up to amused doctors during the lunch break.
  • (7) Israeli media reports said the rocket came down near an amusement park in sand dunes on the edge of the city.
  • (8) He tells an amusing story of how exhilarated, if stunned, he was by completing three skeleton runs at Lillehammer.
  • (9) Tech entrepreneurs will keep expanding into increasingly diverse niches, so it will be amusing to try and pick out the most obscure market being disrupted in 2014.
  • (10) King notes with some amusement that he has been around so long that kids who read and loved him in the 1970s now run publishing houses and newspapers; he is revered, these days, as a grand old man of American letters.
  • (11) She added that the superstore would have pulled business from the local high street and brought big lorries and heavy traffic to the site which sits next to Dreamland, Margate’s derelict amusement park which is being revived.
  • (12) But my amusement should be a problem for movement conservatism.
  • (13) Facebook Twitter Pinterest We are most amused … The Windsors, starring Harry Enfield and Hadyn Gwynne, centre.
  • (14) In Brussels, the reaction was more bemusement than amusement.
  • (15) It’s something that has always baffled and amused me about my grandmother.
  • (16) It amuses me that he calls his new material "songs" when they are so unsingable.
  • (17) The joke, the uncontainable amusement, the gleeful satisfaction, was that most rational people had thought that he was too disabled to walk 26 miles, that he was too sick.
  • (18) The tribunal ruled: "The comment having been made, other people in the room, including other supervisors, laughing and finding it amusing, was inevitably conduct that any gay police officer would reasonably consider … degrading."
  • (19) "The part in the film is small, I thought it would be amusing.
  • (20) Now tell us this, Robbie, when you collected your MBE from the queen, did you exchange amusing chitchat with the woman who most of us only ever encounter on stamps?

Bemuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To muddle, daze, or partially stupefy, as with liquor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) September 20, 2015 There were bemused reactions from some politicians.
  • (2) He shrugs in bemusement at what is, to him, a meaningless compliment.
  • (3) Adoption and fostering: ‘The best thing you have ever done’ Read more The process of adopting disabled children was much harder when she first did it in the 1980s, Thorn says, adding that people tended to be bemused as to why any parent would volunteer for the additional work involved in bringing up children with varying needs.
  • (4) Back in Slovenia, Velikonja's situation is viewed with a degree of bemusement.
  • (5) I was bemused when Lord Bell suggested the police should interest themselves in the case of a fictional assassination of a person who was already dead.
  • (6) But the attack on TalkTalk has left researchers bemused.
  • (7) In Brussels, the reaction was more bemusement than amusement.
  • (8) Klitschko and a bemused audience watched on as Fury stalked the ring in full song, most of those present presumably wishing for it to stop.
  • (9) Twenty years ago, diaspora organisations such as Afford were among the first to draw attention to African diasporas' important roles in Africa's development, to bemused and sceptical audiences.
  • (10) Zile, a US-educated former finance minister generally seen as competent and moderate, is bemused.
  • (11) But Ian Gordon, banks analyst at Investec, said: "We were quite bemused listening to RBS management describe the business as 'ready for privatisation in 12 months'.
  • (12) It has a slightly bemused expression and wears its underpants over its trousers.
  • (13) Budd is bemused but not, you sense, displeased at the renewed media attention, despite the pain it caused before.
  • (14) Granted, there was the odd person who just didn’t get it, who asked bemused questions such as: “Who makes decisions?” (both of us), “Who should we email?” (try both of us), or “Who’s in charge?” (erm, both of us).
  • (15) Salmond refused to sit down, bringing proceedings to a halt, and looked bemused by the chaos he had created.
  • (16) The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, appeared bemused when asked about the use of French as the language of Brexit: “If I am correctly informed, we are all entitled to speak in our native tongue.” Some EU officials were amused that French could be the language of Britain’s EU divorce.
  • (17) I’ve noticed on a number of occasions after leaving a snarky remark that they’ll comment again, not just bemused by the fact that I’ve taken offence, but wanting me to know that they like me.
  • (18) The Kazakh-stand sings a little louder and Kyrgios shakes his head in bemusement.
  • (19) After a lap of honour with her 11-month-old daughter in her arms, Pavey sounded almost bemused at her success.
  • (20) Part of their appeal was their apparent nonchalance, which tended to be mistaken for cool but was really, she says, just gauche bemusement.