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Boggle   Listen
verb
Boggle  v. i.  (past & past part. boggled; pres. part. boggling)  
1.
To stop or hesitate as if suddenly frightened, or in doubt, or impeded by unforeseen difficulties; to take alarm; to exhibit hesitancy and indecision. "We start and boggle at every unusual appearance." "Boggling at nothing which serveth their purpose."
2.
To do anything awkwardly or unskillfully.
3.
To play fast and loose; to dissemble.
Synonyms: To doubt; hesitate; shrink; stickle; demur.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Boggle" Quotes from Famous Books



... that wouldn't just suit 'em. These is folk that wants to have th' Lord—a tidy way from 'em—and keep th' transgressions too. Eh, Mistress, but when a man can pray right through th' hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, his heart's middlin' perfect wi' the Lord. Otherwise, he'll boggle at them last verses. We don't want Him to search us when we know He'll find yon wedge o' gold and yon Babylonish garment if He ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, after the first boggle, rapidly; as in the tricktrack board, where the hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22; but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25, and 33 again with 16,—which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering him by saying ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... way I took it—on my behalf—for several days. When people have understood you very adequately for ten years you do not expect them to boggle at any problem you may present at the end of the decade. I thought Dacres was moved by a fine sense of compassion. I thought that with his admirable perception he had put a finger on the little comedy of fruitfulness ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... to this is probably fantastical, and I state it only because, from the first moment to the last, it has always made me boggle. I don't like a stranger—Query, "The questioned"—The ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... are he who desired private audience? Well, Captain, these are my council and they are as myself. So we may look upon ourselves as alone. What I may hear they may hear. Zounds, man, never stammer and boggle, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sovereigns his honest calling denied him. There was no resource but thievery and embezzlement, sins which led sometimes to falsehood or incendiarism, and at a pinch to the graver enterprise of murder. But Bruneau was not one to boggle at trifles. Women he would encounter—young or old, dark or fair, ugly or beautiful, it was all one to him—and the fools who withheld him riches must be punished for their niggard hand. For a while a theft here and there, a cunning extortion of money upon the promise ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... rudimentary personage in prehistoric times from whom he has been gradually improved up to his present state of enlightenment and perfection. But each state has also its own troubles as well as its pleasures; and, though the former are a price which no decent fellow would boggle at for a moment, it is useless to pretend that paying ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... to flesh. But now, just as if they would reduce their philosophy to their account-books, they lessen the expenses of their suppers in certain unnecessary and needless matters, but the untamed and murderous part of their expense they nothing boggle at. "Well! What then?" say they. "We have nothing to do with brute beasts." Nor have you any with perfumes, nor with foreign sauces, may some one answer; therefore leave these out of your banquets, if you are driving out everything that is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... some other standard than their standard of accuracy. They are dealing here with a subject matter which to them is indistinguishable from fiction. The canon of truth cannot be applied. They do not boggle over such news if it conforms to their stereotypes, and they continue to read it if it interests them. [Footnote: Note, for example, how absent is indignation in Mr. Upton Sinclair against socialist papers, even those which are as malignantly unfair to employers as certain of the papers cited ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann



Words linked to "Boggle" :   startle, waver, start, flabbergast, bowl over, hesitate, jump, surprise



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