bamboozle

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verb

To cause to accept what is false, especially by trickery or misrepresentation: beguile, betray, bluff, cozen, deceive, delude, double-cross, dupe, fool, hoodwink, humbug, mislead, take in, trick. Informal have. Slang four-flush. Idioms: lead astray, play false, pull the wool over someone's eyes, put something over on, take for a ride. See honest/dishonest.

v

Definition: fool; cheat
Antonyms: be honest

Origin Unknown
This word originated in Terra Incognita

The etymological experts are bamboozled by this one. No one knows where it came from or how long it had been around when it appeared on the London stage on November 26, 1702, and in print in the same play in 1703. This was a drama entitled She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not by the notable but not always esteemed Colley Cibber. In the second act, a character complains about "Sham Proofs, that they propos'd to bamboozle me with," and in the fourth, there is mention of "the old Rogue" who "knows how to bamboozle."

Like most new words, bamboozle encountered resistance. In a famous essay on the "continual corruption of our English tongue," Jonathan Swift, author of such notable works as Gulliver's Travels, complains about "certain words invented by some pretty fellows, such as banter, bamboozle, country put, and kidney." He gave an example of the "present polite way of writing": "'Tis said the French king will bamboozl us agen, which causes many speculations. The Jacks and others of that kidney, are very uppish and alert upon't, as you may see by their phizz's." (Country put was long ago put out of its misery; it refers to a country bumpkin. Kidney in this sense means temperament or disposition, and phizz is physiognomy or face, both rarely used nowadays. But banter and bamboozle are going strong.)

Bamboozle resembles the ten-dollar words introduced in the exuberant American frontier in the 1800s, words like sockdolager (1830), hornswoggle (1829), and skedaddle (1861)--all also "origin unknown." But bamboozle was a full century earlier, so it must have had a different source. The early 1700s were a time when words from all over the world were immigrating to English, including others discussed in this book: catamaran from Tamil, shaman from Evenki, mongoose from Marathi, marimba from Kimbundu, and dory from Miskito.

It's even possible that bamboozle was entirely made up out of thin air by an English speaker. But most new words do not come from nowhere; they are either borrowed from other languages or created by combining and reshaping current words. As more documents of the period, and more languages, are investigated, the source of bamboozle may one day be clear. Meanwhile, it stands in this book for all the words whose origin is yet unknown.

And they are legion. There are hundreds in the etymologies of a desk dictionary, thousands in bigger books. If "origin unknown" were a language, it would rank behind only French, Latin, Greek, and the older versions of English itself as a contributor to English. Here are a few of the other unknowns: cuddle (1520), askance (1530), hunch (1581), sedan (1635), banter (1676), condom (1706), tantrum (1714), fake (1775), blizzard (1829), jazz (1913), and bozo (1920). Perhaps it is appropriate that puzzle (1602) is one of the words whose source is a mystery.

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verb trans.
verb trans.

To confuse, bewilder. (1712 —) .
E. Gaskell He fairly bamboozles me. He is two chaps (1854).

[From earlier sense, deceive, trick; ultimately prob. of cant origin; cf. obs. bam hoax.]

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Next:	bananas, bang, banger

For a list of words related to bamboozler, see:

• Morality or Character

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See words rhyming with "bamboozler."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Bamboozle.

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Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - snyde, narre, forvirre

Nederlands (Dutch)
bedriegen, in de war brengen, belazeren

Français (French)
v. tr. - embobiner, mystifier, enjôler, déboussoler (fam)

Deutsch (German)
v. - aufs Kreuz legen, verblüffen

Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - ξεγελάω

Italiano (Italian)
infinocchiare, imbrogliare

Português (Portuguese)
v. - enganar, iludir

Русский (Russian)
обманывать, морочить голову

Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - engañar, embaucar, engatusar

Svenska (Swedish)
v. - lura, locka

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
欺骗, 迷惑

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 欺騙, 迷惑

한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 속이다, ~을 애 먹이다

日本語 (Japanese)
v. - ことば巧みに欺く, 騙す, 迷わす, 欺く, いっぱい食わせる, 困らせる

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(فعل) خدع, خبل‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - ‮רימה, בילבל‬

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