Possibly a back formation frombetwattled, late 18th-century Dorset British slang forconfused,bewildered.
betwattle (third-person singular simple presentbetwattles,present participlebetwattling,simple past and past participlebetwattled)
- (archaic, transitive, West Country) Tosurprise, toconfound, tobefuddle, to put in a distressed state of mind.
1996, Jo Ann Ferguson,Miss Charity's Case (Zebra Regency Romance),→ISBN:She would not let a manbetwattle her with kisses... again.
2007, Jocelyn Kelley,Lost in Shadow:"No, you have tried tobetwattle me by making the facts fit your assumption of who killed you and why."
- (archaic, intransitive, West Country) To be in a distressed state of mind.
- A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English, John S. Farmer and W. E. Henly, 1905. Betwaddled. Retrieved fromarchive.org
- Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire, Williams and Jones, 1873. Betwaddled. Retrievedonline.
