Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to embarrass, to confuse, to disconcert.

1829		Virginia Literary Museum 30 Dec. 458: Hornswoggle. ‘To embarrass irretrievably.’ Kentucky [DA].
1860		Oregon Argus 12 May n.p.: P. F. is going to hornswoggle the Douglas Democrats.
1892		Holt County Sentinel (Oregon, MO) 21 June 1/3: Stand up for your rights [...] Don’t let them hornswoggle you.
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 140: The fellow I’ve been having so much fun with—the Nervy Matt that tried to hornswoggle me with my own photograph. Passed it off as his own, Florry!
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 65: You’ve let them hornswoggle you into being a Baptist witch-doctor!
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 568: Most of these, of course, had their brief days and then disappeared, but there were others that got into the common vocabulary and still survive, e.g., blizzard, to hornswoggle, sockdolager and rambunctious.

2. (also horn-swaggle) to cheat, to swindle; thus hornswoggler, a cheat.

1867		Sat. Eve. Press (Menasha, WI) 22 Oct. 1/4: [They adjourned] to hunt up a Republican whom they can horsoggle into a consent to run for the Assembly.
1871		Richmond Dispatch (VA) 13 Feb. 1/5: Mr Acker, the eminent hornswaggler, thrilled the House [...] with one of his most majestic efforts.
1877		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (4th edn) 786: Hornswoggle. Foolery, deception. Western.
1882		E. Nye Forty Liars (1888) 45: Last week she got hornswoggled into buying some Japanese tidies of a leading bric-a-bracker.
1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 15: ‘[Y]ou can’t find no wus hornswogglers onto the streets ’n we are’.
1891		L.A. Herald 5 Nov. 4/1: We aim to drive the governor [...] to protect the taxpayers being hornswoggled by Republican machine politicians.
1900		T. Dreiser Sister Carrie 72: A truly deep-dyed villain could have hornswaggled him as readily as he could have flattered a pretty shop-girl.
1911		J. London ‘Burning Daylight’ in Atlanta Constitution 2 Apr. 2/5: But don’t forget, boys, when you-all want me to hornswoggle Wall Street another flutter, all you have to do is whisper the word.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 578: horn-swaggle, v. To cheat [...] ‘Don’t let him horn-swaggle you.’.
1914		Day Book (Chicago) 5 Nov. 16/1: Tax dodgers, tax fixers and all the big and little tax hornswogglers.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 250: If you want to know what hell can really do in the way of furies, look for the chap who has been hornswoggled into taking a long an unnecessary bicycle ride in the dark without a lamp.
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 144: Everybody in New York is trying to hornswoggle them.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 244: Your outfit would have connexions. I’d just have to pick a name at random and probably get hornswoggled.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 58: A few weeks later, the police arrested a crook named Strassneider, who confessed to having hornswoggled Banker Kirby out of two hundred thousand dollars.
1979		G. Wolff Duke of Deception (1990) 14: They hornswoggled my grandfather – Jewed him down, as a relative put it.
1988		Deputy Attorney General A.I. Burns testimony Senate Judiciary Committe 26 Jul. n.p.: In my judgment, Mr. Wallach hornswoggled him [R].
1992		D. Pinckney High Cotton (1993) 123: ‘You’ve been hornswoggled,’ Grandfather said.
1994		Guardian Weekend 14 May 62/4: ‘Maxwell Funk is a small-pricked, fat-bellied, shit-eating, hornswoggling son of a bitch’.
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 319: I’m sorry [...] I never meant to hornswoggle.