boggle
English
WOTD – 24 June 2009Category:Word of the day archive/2009Category:Word of the day archiveCategory:Word of the day archive/2009/June
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈbɒɡ.əl/Category:English 2-syllable words#BOGGLECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#BOGGLE
- (US, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈbɑ.ɡəl/Category:English 2-syllable words#BOGGLECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#BOGGLE
- (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈbɔɡ.əl/Category:English 2-syllable words#BOGGLECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#BOGGLE
- Rhymes: -ɒɡəlCategory:Rhymes:English/ɒɡəl#BOGGLECategory:Rhymes:English/ɒɡəl/2 syllables#BOGGLE
Etymology 1
Variation or derivation of bogle, possibly cognate with bug.
Verb
boggle (third-person singular simple present boggles, present participle boggling, simple past and past participle boggled)Category:English lemmas#BOGGLECategory:English verbs#BOGGLECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BOGGLECategory:Pages with entries#BOGGLECategory:Pages with 1 entry#BOGGLE
- (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#BOGGLE or intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BOGGLE) (literally or figuratively) to stop or hesitate as if suddenly seeing a bogle.
- The dogs went on, but the horse boggled at the sudden appearance of the strange beast.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- The horror of the deed and its consequences boggle the imagination.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], line 232:
- You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts you […]Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- 1665, Craddock, the elder, chapter XX, in Knowledge and Practice: or, A Plain Discourse of the Chief Things Necessary ... to Salvation, page 499:
- Do by thy soul, when thou findest it shy of such meditations, as wee do by our horses, that are given to boggle and start when wee ride them; When they fly back, and start at anything in the way, we do not yield to their fear, and go back (that will make them worse another time) but wee ride them up close to that they are afraid of, and so in time break them of that ill quality. [1]Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 18:
- He boggled at arranging for bread to be left daily at some place within easy walking distance, but let that go.Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BOGGLE) To be bewildered, dumbfounded, or confused.
- He boggled at the surprising news.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- The mind boggles.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- 1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter 14, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing, London: Henry Eversden, page 131:
- […] we start and boggle at what is unusual: and like the Fox in the fable at his first view of the Lyon, we cannot endure the sight of the Bug-bear, Novelty.Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- 1685, Isaac Barrow, Of Contentment, Patience and Resignation to the Will of God. Several Sermons, London: Brabazon Aylmer, Sermon 4, pp. 127-128:
- They are best qualified to thrive in [this world] […] whose designs all tend to their own private advantage, without any regard to the publick, or to the good of others; who can use any means conducible to such designs, bogling at nothing which serveth their purpose […]Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- 1795, Mary Wollstonecraft, letter to Gilbert Imlay dated 4 October, 1795, in Mary Wollstonecraft: Letters to Imlay, London: Kegan Paul, 1879, p. 182,
- From the tenour of your last letter however, I am led to imagine, that you have formed some new attachment.—If it be so, let me earnestly request you to see me once more, and immediately. This is the only proof I require of the friendship you profess for me. I will then decide, since you boggle about a mere form.
- 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 15, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 82:
- My imagination boggled at the punishment I would deserve […]Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#BOGGLE) To confuse or mystify; overwhelm.
- The vastness of space really boggles the mind.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- The oddities of quantum mechanics can boggle the minds of students and experienced physicists alike.Category:English terms with usage examples#BOGGLE
- 1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 110:
- For a moment he marvelled at the vastness of the toe-sized teats boggling him, then he stuttered, ‘Goo’ bye.’Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- (USCategory:American English#BOGGLE, dialectCategory:English dialectal terms#BOGGLE) To embarrass with difficulties; to palter or equivocate; to bungle or botch[2]
- (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BOGGLE, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#BOGGLE) To dissemble; to play fast and loose (with someone or something).
- 1643, James Howell, The True Informer, London, page 32:
- I would be loth to exchange consciences with them, and boggle so with God Almighty; but these men by a new kind of Metaphysick have found out a way to abstract the Person of the King from his Office to make his Soveraigntie a kinde of Platonick Idea hovering in the aire, while they visibly attempt to assail and destroy his person […]Category:English terms with quotations#BOGGLE
- (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BOGGLE, of a rat) To wiggle the eyes as a result of bruxing.
Derived terms
Translations
to be bewildered, dumbfounded, or confused
to confuse or mystify; overwhelm
References
- ↑ "Knowledge and practice: or, A plain discourse of the chief things necessary to be known, believ'd, and practised in order to salvation ... The 2d edition revised and inlarged 1665 publisher=William Grantham, Henry Mortlock, and William Miller
- ↑ “boggle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- Samuel Johnson (15 April 1755), “BOGGLE”, in A Dictionary of the English Language: […], volume I (A–K), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan, for J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton; […], →OCLC.
Noun
boggle (plural boggles)Category:English lemmas#BOGGLECategory:English nouns#BOGGLECategory:English countable nouns#BOGGLECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BOGGLECategory:Pages with entries#BOGGLECategory:Pages with 1 entry#BOGGLE
- (datedCategory:English dated terms#BOGGLE) A scruple or objection.
- (datedCategory:English dated terms#BOGGLE) A bungle; a botched situation.
Etymology 2
Noun
boggle (plural boggles)Category:English lemmas#BOGGLECategory:English nouns#BOGGLECategory:English countable nouns#BOGGLECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BOGGLECategory:Pages with entries#BOGGLECategory:Pages with 1 entry#BOGGLE
- Alternative form of bogle.
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