boggle

present singular third person boggles · participle present boggling · participle past boggled · past boggled

1. intransitivetransitive(literally or figuratively) to stop or hesitate as if suddenly seeing a bogle.

   The horror of the deed and its consequences boggle the imagination.

   4 more examples

   The dogs went on, but the horse boggled at the sudden appearance of the strange beast.

   You boggle shrewdly, every feather starts you […]

   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

   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.

   1665, Craddock, the elder, chapter XX, in Knowledge and Practice: or, A Plain Discourse of the Chief Things Necessary ... to Salvation, page 499

   He boggled at arranging for bread to be left daily at some place within easy walking distance, but let that go.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 18

2. intransitiveTo be bewildered, dumbfounded, or confused.

   The mind boggles.

   5 more examples

   He boggled at the surprising news.

   […] 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.

   1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter 14, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing, London: Henry Eversden, page 131

   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 […]

   1685, Isaac Barrow, Of Contentment, Patience and Resignation to the Will of God. Several Sermons, London: Brabazon Aylmer, Sermon 4, pp. 127-128

   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 […]

   1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 15, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 82

3. transitiveTo confuse or mystify; overwhelm.

   The vastness of space really boggles the mind.

   2 more examples

   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.’

   1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 110

4. USdialectalTo embarrass with difficulties; to palter or equivocate; to bungle or botch
5. intransitiveobsoleteTo dissemble; to play fast and loose (with someone or something).

   1 more example

   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 […]

   1643, James Howell, The True Informer, London, page 32

6. intransitiveTo wiggle the eyes as a result of bruxing.

plural boggles

1. datedA scruple or objection.
2. datedA bungle; a botched situation.

plural boggles

1. alternativeAlternative form of bogle.