boggle
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Variation or derivation of bogle, possibly cognate with bug.
Inflected forms:
form: boggles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: boggling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: boggled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: boggled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: (literally or figuratively) to stop or hesitate as if suddenly seeing a bogle.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
transitive
examples: The dogs went on, but the horse boggled at the sudden appearance of the strange beast.
The horror of the deed and its consequences boggle the imagination.
You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts you […]
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.
He boggled at arranging for bread to be left daily at some place within easy walking distance, but let that go.
gloss: To be bewildered, dumbfounded, or confused.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: He boggled at the surprising news.
The mind boggles.
[…] 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.
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 […]
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.
My imagination boggled at the punishment I would deserve […]
gloss: To confuse or mystify; overwhelm.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The vastness of space really boggles the mind.
The oddities of quantum mechanics can boggle the minds of students and experienced physicists alike.
For a moment he marvelled at the vastness of the toe-sized teats boggling him, then he stuttered, ‘Goo’ bye.’
gloss: To embarrass with difficulties; to palter or equivocate; to bungle or botch
pos: verb
tags: US
dialectal
gloss: To dissemble; to play fast and loose (with someone or something).
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: 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 […]
gloss: To wiggle the eyes as a result of bruxing.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
Derived words: boggle-eyed
boggler
bogglesome
bogglingly
bogglish
croggle
mind-boggling
Translations: