By Anatoly Liberman
Two circumstances have induced me to turn to bamboozle. First, I am constantly asked about its origin and have to confess my ignorance (with the disclaimer: “No one knows where it came from”; my acquaintances seldom understand this statement, for I have a reputation to live up to and am expected to provide final answers about the derivation of all words). Second, the Internet recycles the same meager information at our disposal again and again (I am not the only recipient of the fateful question). Since the etymology of bamboozle is guesswork from beginning to end, it matters little how often the uninspiring truth is repeated. Below I will say what little I can about the verb.
Bamboozle probably appeared in English some time around 1700, that is, roughly when it was first recorded. However, “appeared in English” does not mean “was coined,” for a word may exist in another language for any period of time before English absorbs it. Another problem is the definition of “English.” Bamboozle penetrated “polite society” at the beginning of the 18th century, but a provincialism will occasionally reach the capital and become part of common slang (like the word slang itself, for example) after a long underground existence in a dialect. Obscene words and words current in criminals’ language may also gain acceptance (in the rare cases they leave their natural environment) hundreds of years after their emergence. So we can only suppose that bamboozle was noticed rather than coined in London around 1700. Charles Camden Hotten, the author a famous slang dictionary, quoted Jonathan Swift, who had heard that bamboozle was invented by a nobleman during the reign of Charles II (1649-1688). Hotten was justified in doubting the accuracy of such an early date, even though he did not have the benefit of having the first volume of the OED on his desk. Those who lived 200 years ago knew that bamboozle was recent slang, and their opinion should be trusted. If a nobleman had made the verb popular in the second half of the 17th century, it would not have lain dormant so long: literary men would have made use of it.
In a search for the origin of bamboozle, some insecure roads lead to Rome, others to Paris (that is, to Italian and French). The problem is that the syllables bam, bum, and bom are so obviously onomatopoeic (compare boom) and expressive that words containing them can be found in most languages. They usually denote noises, little children, someone who can be duped like a baby, puppets, and so forth. Bamboozle may be an alteration of some such word, for instance, of French bambocher “to play pranks” or Italian imbambolare “to make a fool of one.” Close enough is German Bambus “a good-for-nothing; idler” (with several other related senses, as in Bambusen “bad sailors”), possibly of Slavic origin. Bambus has for a very good reason never been considered the etymon of bamboozle, but the similarity between the two words is striking.
The idea of borrowing is persuasive only when we succeed in showing how a foreign word reached its new home (through what intermediaries and in what milieu). Bamboozle surfaced among many other slang words at an epoch when London was swamped with such neologisms, and the only support we have for reconstructing its past is that at approximately the same time its synonym bam came into use. If bam is the source of bamboozle, an Italian or French source must be ruled out, but if bamboozle was “abbreviated” into bam, all the questions remain.
Contrary to some of the most eminent etymologists, I tend to think that the story began with bam, a word sugge