It's the Word of the Day podcast for September 12th.
Today's word is flummox spelled F-L-U-M-M-O-X.
Flummox is a verb.
To flummox, someone is to confuse or perplex them.
Here's the word used in a sentence from The New York Times.
If Thursday crosswords flummox you,
remember that it's much better for your stress level to do your best and sharpen your skills than to become angry
because you aren't sure what's going on.
When it comes to the origins of the word flummox, etymologists are, well, flummoxed.
No one really knows where the word comes from.
The first known print use of the verb flummox appeared in Charles Dickens' novel The Pickwick Papers in the mid-1830s,
while the adjective flummoxed appeared italicized a few years later in a Dublin newspaper article about laborers striking against employers who oppose their rights.
In this sentence, Lord Cloncurrie is actually flummoxed.
The people refuse to work for him.
To be flummoxed by something is to be utterly confused by it,
that is to be baffled, puzzled, bewildered, completely unable to understand.
Fortunately, a word can be used even if everyone is flummoxed by its etymology,
and by the end of the 19th century,
flummox had become quite common in both British and American English.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.