Bamboozle! How can you not love a word that is so much fun to say and has such a quirky lilt to it?
Most folks know the definition, but I'll offer up the Merriam-Webster version here (by the way, bamboozle is a transitive verb):
- to deceive by underhanded methods : dupe, hoodwink.
- to confuse, frustrate, or throw off thoroughly or completely
Care to make a guess?
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Here's the skinny from a couple of different sources.
First, from the Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, we have:
1703, origin uncertain (but compare Scottish bumbase, bombase to confuse, probably from bombase stuff with cotton, pad, borrowed from Old French bombace, n.; see BOMBAST).Pretty cool, wouldn't you say?
The Online Etymology Dictionary also mentions the Scottish origin, but includes some other alternatives (which I've bolded below):
1703, originally a slang or cant word, of unknown origin. Perhaps Scottish from bombaze, bumbaze "confound, perplex," or related to bombast, or related to French embabouiner "to make a fool (literally 'baboon') of." Wedgwood suggests Italian bambolo, bamboccio, bambocciolo "a young babe," extended by metonymy to mean "an old dotard or babish gull."So maybe Scottish, maybe French, maybe Italian... Hmmmm even trying to pin down the word's origin invites bamboozlement!*
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| Dress to impress (or to bamboozle...) [By Internet Archive Book Images - https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14598098127/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/blastsfromramsho00unse/blastsfromramsho00unse#page/n107/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42482742] |
* To my everlasting etymological delight, there is also a related word—de-bamboozle ("undeceive, disabuse"). Alas, de-bamboozle arrived about 1919. Too late for my Silver Rush series!
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4 comments:
The reference to the French "bombase" had me scurrying around to find that classic governess attire -- bombazine, as opposed to the servants' door covering of baize. Words can be addictive.
Hi Liz! You sent me scuttling around looking up "bombazine" (which I've dressed my characters in from time to time... there are a lot of widows in my series! ;-) ). Wikipedia says:
Bombazine, or bombasine, is a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Quality bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine was once used largely for mourning wear, but the material had gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century.
The word is derived from the obsolete French bombasin, applied originally to silk but afterwards to tree-silk or cotton. Bombazine is said to have been made in England in Elizabeth I's reign, and early in the 19th century it was largely made at Norwich.
... And then, I went in search of "bombase" (ooooh down the rabbit hole...) and found this, in a great discussion about the word "fustian" on The Word Detective (http://www.word-detective.com/2014/05/fustian/ ):
One of the synonyms suggested by any good thesaurus for “fustian” is “bombast,” also meaning “inflated rhetoric” or “pretentious nonsense.” The equivalence is especially apt, because “bombast” originated as a variant of “bombace” (or “bombase”), derived from the Old French “bombace,” meaning “cotton wadding” (from “bombax,” Latin for cotton, itself a corruption of Greek “bombyx,” silk). “Bombast” appeared in the “cotton” sense in the late 16th century, and was immediately pressed into service meaning “verbal padding; meaningless posturing” (“False sublime, known by the name of bombast,” 1762). It’s notable that one of the other uses of “bombast” since that time, both figuratively and literally, has been to mean “earplugs” (“Frame … for your eares the bumbast or stuffing of sufferance and bearing,” 1631)
Whoa! I've written another entire post here. I'd better stop and get to work.
Thank you, Liz, for the detour on the bamboozle journey!
My apologies. Lol. I love the rabbit holes down which your posts send me weekly.
No need to apologize... I love the rabbit holes of research as well! :-D Glad you enjoy the weekly posts, Liz!
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