Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also bambouzle, bamboxter) to hoax, to trick, to confuse; thus bamboozling n. and adj.; bamboozlingly adv.; bamboozlification n.

1702		Cibber She Would and She Would Not II i: I’ll try if the Old Putt can bamboozle him or no. [Ibid.] IV i: I’ll have a Touch of the Bamboozle with him.
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 16 July 18: Why must the Common People be Bamboozled out of their Senses, and made believe Inconsistencies and Contradictions.
1709		R. Steele Tatler No. 71 n.p.: Bambouzling is exploded; a Shat is a Tatler.
1712		J. Arbuthnot Hist. of John Bull 106: Nic. had bambouzled John a while about the 18,000 and 28,000.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera II xiii: I’m bubbled [...] Bambouzled, and bit!
1731		C. Coffey Devil to Pay I iii: You cheating, bamboozling Villain.
1739		R. Bull Grobianus 255: A very worthy Fellow of St. John’s, Was by a Country Wit bamboozled once.
1741		Witchcraft of Love 31: I’ll not be fool’d and bamboozled at this rate, mun.
1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) IV viii: To be bamboozled! cheated! laught at!
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 203: What pity ’tis, that rogues so base, / Should thus bamboozle Jove’s own race.
1768		Cleland Woman of Honor I 158: It is something in the low stile of your old college-wit of bamboozzling.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 380: A man may be bamboozl’d once, / As I was, by that thick-scull’d dunce.
1786		C. Morris ‘Billy Pitt and the Farmer’ Collection of Songs (1788) 23: Then Billy began for / To make an oration, / As oft he had done / To bamboozle the nation.
1788		J. O’Keeffe Prisoner at Large 50: I like to see a crabbed old numbskull bamboozled.
1793		W. Macready Irishman in London II ii: I dread that fellow’s having any more schemes to bamboozle and cheat me.
1812		‘Hector Bull-us’ Diverting Hist. of John Bull and Brother Jonathan 70: S’life, Bull [...] I’m not to be bamboozled in this way.
1828		J. Thomson An Uncle Too Many I ii: I ar’n’t easily bamboozled, I can tell you.
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/1: Lord how you does bamboozle them ere flats and swells.
1837		‘Nights At Sea’ Bentley’s Misc. Nov. 613: I thinks it’s hardly civil on you to try and bamboxter me arter that fashion.
1837		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 264: Don’t you be running your rigs upon me; I ain’t the man to be bamboozl’d by long-winded stories about dukes and duchesses.
1838		Comic Almanack Mar. 130: Och! Nora don’t nade sich bamboozlificashin: / Her own purty locks is as bright an’ as red.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 113: The certainty of the fury of O’Grady [...] attendant on his being bamboozled.
1845		W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 90: I’ll not be bamboozled this time.
1847		[A. Harris] (con. 1820s) Settlers & Convicts 346: ‘I am not a man to be bamboozled; drop all this sort of thing if you please’.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 20: What sort of bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 23: I ain’t going to be bamboozled, my lady!
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 242/2: They are a class whom the patterers [...] not so very unreasonably consider ‘fair game’ for bamboozling.
1869		Ballarat Star (Vic.) 26 June 1/3: [S]irectors who know enough of mining not to be bamboozled by scientific slang,.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 153: Their business there was to conspire to bamboozle and deceive honest buyers.
1884		Sporting Times 27 Dec. 2/5: Don’t try to bamboozle me! I’ve known of it for months.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 9/3: They have been flattered and humbugged by professions of an anxiety to be their organ, and the plan adopted has been to endorse their mistakes, minister to their transient agitations, and do everything but interpret for them the great movements of their order elsewhere, and explain the fallacies by which they and their forefathers have been tickled and bamboozled.
1887		W.T. Call Josh Hayseed in N.Y. 63: You can’t bamboozle me.
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 202: Good women all over the world [...] have loved to be bamboozled by these genial, roistering dare-devils.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 6: Bamboozle, to deceive or cheat.
1900		Marvel 31 Oct. 14: He could bamboozle his unhappy, worried mind into thinking itself into a condition of complete bliss!
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Oct. 4/1: The bamboozled and bulldozed citizens of New South Wales.
1908		J. Kelley Thirteen Years in Oregon Penitentiary 136: The British got around President Harrison and bamboozled him.
1911		Gem 28 Oct. 15: He’s been lying and bamboozling us all along.
1922		T.E. Spencer ‘Suburban Felicity’ Budgeree Ballads 11: I popped into bed, mum, I wrapped up my head, mum, / And tried all I could to bamboozle ’em.
1932		L.E. Lawes Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing 172: I asked him how he bamboozled his customers.
1940		N. Mitford Pigeon Pie 117: The dignitary [...] was very much displeased at having been bamboozled into allowing a Requiem Mass to be sung for the soul of a pig.
1952		I. Bolton Many Mansions in N.Y. Mosaic (1999) 425: She kept on wishing she had not allowed herself to be bamboozled into ordering that rich, too-heavy chocolate.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 122: Leaving the building with me would bamboozle any spy.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 156: A man who had bamboozled a doting group of people with his lugubrious attentions.
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 11: ‘Tryin’, bamboozle me?’ Nah, Paul wouldn’t do a thing like that, lie to an old friend like me.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 437: He had that superciliousness – the sort a backstreet car mechanic uses to bamboozle unwitting customers.
2009		Observer Mag. 4 Jan. 24: Do the right thing! Don’t be bamboozled!
2012		A. Bergen ‘Dread Fellow Churls’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Vain enough to apply a comb-over to bamboozle short-sighted folks.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles : It’s bamboozling that she thinks doing so [i.e. running off] with him would be a good idea.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 275: I vetted vile stroies for Bondage Bob as I bamboozled him.

2. to abuse, to libel.

1821–6

‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 263: I’ll no stand by and hear auld Scotland bamboozled.