It's the Word of the Day for March 14th.
Today's word is bamboozle, spelled B-A-M-B-O-O-Z-L-E.
Bamboozle is a verb.
To bamboozle someone is to deceive, trick, or confuse them.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Forbes by Monica Mercury.
We're not trying to make a perfect film that's like, gotta twist.
Oh my god, the coach is a ghost.
We're not out to bamboozle audiences or get awards or anything," Taika Wattiti told Polygon.
The director continued, we want to make a nice movie, a true story about a football team,
and the only message is, be happy and don't live in the past.
In 1710,
Irish author Jonathan Swift wrote an article on the continual corruption of our English tongue,
in which he complained of the choice of certain words invented by some pretty fellows.
Note that pretty here originally meant artful or clever.
Among the inventions Swift disliked was the word bamboozle,
which was used by contemporary criminals.
Beyond those who favored the word, little is known of its early days,
but it has clearly defied Swift's assertion that all new affected modes of speech are the first perishing parts in any language.
With its first syllable like a sound effect,
bamboozle hints at mystification or magic when it is used to mean to confuse,