Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. ruined.

1835		United Service Mag. July 343: ‘If it gets down to the gun room, or into the hold, why know know—’ ‘We should be flummoxed’.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 41: FLUMMUXED, stopped, used up.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 40: Utterly flummoxed, he attempted to close—but the Magpie [...] fetched him such a thud.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 436: Gi’ this up nar and it’s all flummoxed.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 32: What with the bare coil of the bulb, the lavatorial damp, the flummoxed bed, Hope had burst into tears.

2. (also flummaxed, flummoxed up) confused, let down, outwitted.

1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 437: And my ’pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove an alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call re’glarly flummoxed, and that’s all about it.
1840		‘Characters of Freshmen’ in Whibley In Cap and Gown (1889) 170: So many of the men I know / Were ‘flummoxed’ at the last great-go.
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 30: Flummixed, Diddled.
1864		Cornhill Mag. Dec. 742: I say, Tom. Yes, mate. If I should have a fit heave a bucket of water over me. Tom was too astonished, or, as he expressed it, conflummoxed to make any reply [F&H].
1869		Sportsman (London) 5 Aug. 2/1: Notes on News [...] At last the Poor-law Board have been ‘flummaxed’.
1871–82		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1881		Newcastle Courant 9 Sept. 6/5: The police were ‘flummuxed’.
1887		Cumberland Mercury (NSW) 24 Dec. 4/2: Alban Gee got a little ‘flummuxed’.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) XI 2201: I was ‘flummoxed’ by this very clear invitation to fucking.
1896		‘’Arry on Spring-Time and Sport’ in Punch 18 Apr. 184/1: The Water Cos. last year was flummoxed.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 9: flummoxed up, adj. Confused.
1908		E.S. Sorenson Quinton’s Rouseabout and other Stories 119: She must’ve forgot ter take the ladder back, in ’er ’urry. No doubt she was flurried and flummoxed an’ all that, poor devil.
1925		L. Doyle Dear Ducks 253: He stands right at my elbow all dinner-time, till I’m that flummoxed that I can’t tell a fork from a spoon.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 13: When he has had a dekko at the mess his dog has made of my leg, I’ll be flummoxed if the clodpole doen’t laugh.
1953		L. Doyle Back to Ballygullion 75: For the first time in my drinking life I’m bate an’ flummoxed.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 247: This flummoxed me, and for a while I didn’t know how to go on.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 122: Grungle [...] sat staring at Les, a rather flummoxed look on his face.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 265: She had to confront the pallor and distress of the mother, and the surprising child on the floor [...], and the flummoxed dog.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 274: The longer we stay in Newcastle, the worse we’re flummoxed by its contradictions.
2001		Week (US) 1 June 3: The happiness experts are flummoxed.
2013		A. Fox-Lerner ‘Ghost Wife’ in ThugLit July-Aug. [ebook] [S]he was flummoxed by the local accent.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 453: Ivan [...] can’t see where this is going. [...] Nell [...] looks just as flummoxed.

3. bankrupt, economically ruined.

1851

Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 4 Jan. n.p.: Gibbs, the sixpenny fodder man, has fell through — flummuxed — bu’sted up!

4. dangerous, to be avoided.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 142: Flummuxed done up, sure of a month in quod or prison. In mendicant freemasonry, the sign chalked by rogues and tramps upon a gate-post or house corner, to express to succeeding vagabonds that it is unsafe for them to call there.
1873		Sl. Dict.

5. drunk.

1933

‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 225: Our tippler may further be [...] flummoxed.