poggle, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

poggle n.

also poggleman, puggle, puggly

[Hind. ???? (p?gal) an insane person, ???? (p?gal?) crazy, insane]

a fool, an eccentric.

1826		H. Torrens ‘A Day in Cantonments’ in Carey Good Old Days of Honorable John Company (1906) I 224: Now, barring Sundays, every burra bhore / Views us unlearning what we learnt before, / Threes to the right – ‘Toom kuhan jate ho?’ / Threes to the left – ‘You paugul, ither ao’.
1829		J. Shipp Memoirs II 255: It’s true the people call me, I know not why, the ‘pugley’; yet, sir, I am Not mad, but I ever must wail unfeignedly the loss of him who now has left me.
1844		J.W. Kaye Peregrine Pultuney I 126: ‘Doctor sahib poggle, gudder — fool master say in England’.
1866		G.O. Trevelyan Dawk Bungalow 385: I was foolish enough to pay these budmashes beforehand, and they have thrown me over. I must have been a paugul to do it .
1868		Out of Meshes 180: ‘Where all roads are bad you must take a rough one. The Major is very probably not a very able officer, but he would listen to reason, he would be very easily led.’‘He’s quite a poggle!’.
1879		E.H. Rogers How to Speak Hind?st?n? 6: The following are a few other common instances of incorrect spelling and pronunciation used by Anglo-Indians: [...] poggle for p?gal (a fool); hitherow for idhar a,o (come here).
1884		Times of India 28 Feb. 2/5: Our Collector is a little further on, unbending, very slightly, to Mrs. Poggle, the wife of Col. Poggle, of the 190th.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson 717/2: poggle, puggly, &c., s. Properly Hind. p?gal; ‘a madman, an idiot’.
1890		Kipling ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’in Indian Tales 633: ‘Then change your clothes as quickly as you pos-sib-ly can!’ rings out Mother’s clear voice from the house. ‘And don’t be a little pagal!’.
1911		C. Heath Peter’s Progress 276: [T]he chap who was looking after them, a native, was rather a ‘poggle,’ which he explained was the expressive Hindustani word for fool.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 225: Poggle (also Puggle): (Hind.—Pagal). [...] An idiot.
1933		E. Mordaunt Mrs Van Kleek (1949) 176: ‘You dirty, thieving, black nigger man,’ she had said [...] ‘I’ll have no poggleman round my kitchen.’ ‘A poggleman! To be called a poggleman!’.
1989		(con. 1944–45) B. Aldiss Forgotten Life 76: India was overwhelmed — with humankind. [...] Many of them described themselves as puggle. It was the sun, the heat.

In compounds

poggle-khana (n.) [Hind. ???? (p?gal) mad, crazy + ???? (kh?n?) food, eating]

1. a picnic, lit. a ‘fool’s dinner’; also in fig, use, a mess, see cite 1897.

1885		H. Dufferin and Ava Our Viceregal Life I 149: He told me that the native name for a regular picnic is a ‘Poggle-khana,’ that is, a fool’s dinner. [Ibid.] 161: We sat on the ground — a real ‘poggle-khana’ — and had a very pleasant hour.
1890		Scots Obs. III 163/2: [I]n Simla, there seems to be no end to dances, theatricals, shooting parties, sports, and picnics. What the simple Hindu thinks of the last may be gathered from the fact that his name for it is ‘poggle khana,’ which signifies a fool’s dinner.
1897		B.M. Croker Mr Jervis 240: ‘Sometimes for one year he never speaks. Sometimes bobbery and trying to kill himself; but Osman took care of him. Now, lo! Osman is dead; there will be an end soon. This house will cease to be a poggle-khana, and all the worthy “nouker log” (servants) can return to their own country’.
1908		J. Ayscough Mr. Beke of the Blacks 248: [O]ver there, on the racecourse, he will play no more polo; up there, among the hills that climb upward to Mahableshwar, he will join no more ‘fool-feast,’ poggle-khana, picnics.
1912		E. Mordaunt Cost of It 222: ‘Ah bas, it is nothing, Gran’ Monsieur – some mad English off for a poggle-khana; drive on, Monsieur’.

2. a fancy-dress ball [prob. a mis-reading of next].

1917

A.C. Menzies Lord William Beresford, V.C. 155: And we think — but no, we will not think, we will go dress for the ‘Poggle Khana’ or fools’ dance, as the natives call a fancy dress ball.

poggly nautch (n.) [Hind. ???? (p?gal?) crazy + ??? (n?ch) dance]

(Anglo-Ind.) a fancy-dress ball.

1903		W. Crooke in Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson 620/1: A poggly nautch is a fancy-dress ball.
1935		Chicago Dly Mail 22 May 23/2: [headline] Puggly Nautch Will Be Held Tonight. / Wise elephant god of the orient, Gannpati, holding gracious Siva on his knee, ensures you an evening of glamor and color; a garden party under a tropical night sky; lovely nautch girls; fakirs, adept in eastern magic.