Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also boggle up) to blunder, to do something very badly; thus boggled adj., badly done; boggling n., blundering.

a.1640		R. Brome New Academy V i: Do you begin to boggle, / And when I send for twenty pieces, do you / Send me but ten?
1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) V v: Curse on this boggling villain. Would we ne’er Had trusted him.
1794		W. Godwin Caleb Williams (1966) 91: Tell Swineard – if he makes the least boggling, it is as much as his life is worth – he shall starve by inches.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 33: He sung the same songs repeatedly [...] so that when, after saying ten or twelve lines after him for three months together, I got to boggle through them without missing.
1829		N. Wales Chron. 6 Aug. 4/4: It was there you boggled, and then the audience hissed.
1837		R.M. Bird Nick of the Woods III 192: Does thee boggle at the skin, because of its hardness.
1870		Rochester Democrat (N.Y.) n.p.: His affairs were found to be woefully boggled, and, his creditors have little chance to recover anything.
1886		‘’Arry’s Spring Thoughts’ Punch 17 Apr. 185: ’Twill be short-sleeves and reach-me-downs soon, if Aristos boggle or flinch.
1901		‘Miles Franklin’ My Brilliant Career 110: Here he boggled completely, which had the effect of reviving my laughter.
1910		W. Irwin ‘O. Henry, Man and Writer’ in Cosmopolitan Sept. 448: [attrib. to O. Henry 3 June 1907] Suppose you and I got another chance, with the experience and knowledge we have now--wouldn't we boggle up our lives just as badly?
1913		C. Mackenzie Sinister Street I 154: If any stupid stoat or stockfish boggles over one word, I’ll flay him. Begin!
1940		M. Panter-Downes ‘Lunch with Mr. Biddle’ Wartime Stories (1999) 52: A Provençal way of cooking chicken that his housekeeper really didn’t boggle too badly, considering that she leaves out the truffles and the butter.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 228: Bill set up for a horse-doctor, but he boggled everything, an’ killed more’n he cured.

2. to amaze, to confuse; to look stunned; thus boggling adj., amazed [1980s+ use popularized by General Alexander Haig’s celebrated remark ‘It boggles the mind’].

1674		T. Duffet Empress of Morocco Act II: Then he began to stare and goggle Like skittish Jade about to boggle.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 410: We would kiss his bare arse without boggling at it.
1707		N. Ward Wooden World 11: If he boggle or stand upon his Puntilio’s, and refuse performing [...] he’s immediately proclaim’d [...] a Fresh-water Booby.
1711		R. L’Estrange Present from the October-Club 8: Not one amongst the Godly Crew / Would boggle at the Sin.
1741		Richardson Memoirs of the Life of Lady H 41: What does this Fellow boggle at?
1778		Mme D’Arblay Diary (1891) I 5: Mr. Crip, who, very much perplexed, said, in a boggling manner, that it was a novel.
1828		R.M. Bird City Looking Glass I iv: The chief ingredients of which are love and counterfeit money [...] I am sure the gentlemen will not boggle at the latter.
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 153: Respecting these three Doctor’s names / Lest you seem to boggle O, / I’ll tell you there was Whistlewind, / And Duckworth, and Pulltoggle O.
1873		J. Mair Hbk of Phrases 97: Boggle, to embarrass.
1886		Bury & Norwich Post 26 Jan. 8/5: Easy does it, and fudgin’s no crime. Ain’t it scrumptious to watch ’ow they boggle and sniff?
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 21: I had become an acknowledged member of the gutter minstrel profession, [...] though my soul boggled at times at this.
1901		‘Miles Franklin’ My Brilliant Career 308: I’m afraid you might be boggling at some funny little point that could easily be wiped out.
1917		W. Muir Observations of Orderly 209: Every Bluebottle had taken first-aid classes and passed examinations at which most of the mockers would have boggled.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 616: Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes Jeep about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which boggled Bloom a bit.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 169: I inspected my imagination. He was right. It boggled.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 96: I’ve took a fancy to you an’ am willin’ to pay a high price – even marriage – if that’s what yo’re bogglin’ over.
1953		H. Tracy Mind You, I’ve Said Nothing (1961) 40: Imagination boggled and shied at the thought of what the ladies would say.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 76: It boggles the nerves to consider what might happen.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 32: What boggled her, though, was why her uptight husband [...] was suddenly a sex symbol.
1988		R. McGough An Imaginary Menagerie 46: Duffle goats / cling to mountainsides / at heights / that make one boggle.
1999		Indep. Rev. 27 July 13: My mind boggled mid-fag.
2001		Guardian G2 29 Jan. 5: The mind boggles, but apparently you can smoke the skins.
2010		Sun. Times 19 Dec. 12/5: It boggles the mind taht he’s spent so long doing basically f***-all.