Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Bambsquabbled

Here's a fun word to flabbergast your friends with: bambsquabbled. Unfamiliar with the term? Sometimes it's written as bumsquabbled.

Still mystified?
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If so, you are not alone. I was mystified as well, until Americanisms, Old and New, by John Stephen Farmer (1889) set me straight:

Bambsquabbled.—This coined word, which is, however, rarely used except in humorous writings, first saw the light in "The Legend of the American War." It signifies discomfiture and defeat, or stupefaction; sometimes written bumsquabbled.

Bumsquabbled also shows up in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinker's Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology, Volume 1 edited by Albert Barrère and Charles Godfrey Leland (1889), with the simple definition of "crestfallen."

It also is listed in the post 40 Brilliant Words That Start with B, by Paul Anthony Jones. And wow, there are some other winners in this list that I may just have to tackle someday.

Other than that, all I can add is that bumsquabbled nowadays seems to be attached to pirates and treasure hunting. (Tracking down the meaning of obscure slang can be a treasure hunt in and of itself.)

Shiver me timbers, I be bumsquabbled!
Image by Tumisu from Pixabay