Bamboozled

I used the word bamboozled in the story of the Magick family which I am writing at the present… and it seemed such an unlikely word for the narrator to use that I had to tell a little story about it, explaining why he might have used it as he did.

I looked up the definition of bamboozled which is what you would expect, to be tricked, conned, cheated, hoodwinked… but the origin of it seems a mystery. it first appears as far as anyone knows in the 1660’s and seems associated with what were termed ‘the criminal classes’. Bamboozling then would have a criminal aspect, whereas now it seems more usually to be tricked in an amusing way, or to be totally perplexed or puzzled by something. There is an argument that it was derived from the word ‘bombazine’ which was a black fabric associated with mourning dress, so maybe pretend mourners would trick the bereaved at funerals or women pretending to be in mourning to trick charitable persons.

I think it is one of those mysterious English words which has just arisen, perhaps from just the way language is played with and created spontaneously for a variety of reasons.