bamboozle
pronunciation
How to pronounce bamboozle in British English:
UK [bæmˈbu:zl]
How to pronounce bamboozle in American English:
US [bæmˈbuzəl]
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- Verb:
- conceal one's true motives from especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
Word Origin
- bamboozle
- bamboozle: [18] Bamboozle is a mystery word. It first appears in 1703, in the writings of the dramatist Colly Cibber, and seven years later it was one of a list of the latest buzzwords cited by Jonathan Swift in the Tatler (others included bully, mob, and sham). It is probably a ‘cant’ term (a sort of low-life argot), and may perhaps be of Scottish origin; there was a 17th-century Scottish verb bombaze ‘perplex’, which may be the same word as bombace, literally ‘padding, stuffing’, but metaphorically ‘inflated language’ (the variant form bombast has survived into modern English).=> bombast
- bamboozle (v.)
- 1703, originally a slang or cant word, perhaps Scottish from bombaze "perplex," related to bombast, or French embabouiner "to make a fool (literally 'baboon') of." Related: Bamboozled; bamboozling. As a noun from 1703.
Example
- 1. I hereby transfer the crown of the golden bamboozle to macau .
- 2. Their reports demonstrated that the nazis could bamboozle even a foreign audience .
- 3. That 's the thing about the golden bamboozle : it pulls you in .
- 4. Perhaps paulson and the administration believed that they could bamboozle americans into doing whatever they asked .
- 5. To bamboozle someone with card tricks .