Word of the Day

: January 4, 2018

hornswoggle

verb HORN-swah-gul

What It Means

: bamboozle, hoax

hornswoggle in Context

"Grass-fed is an unregulated term with no standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This can add to the confusion for home cooks already trying to avoid getting hornswoggled by advertising claims (look what happened to the heavily abused word 'natural')." — Jennifer Rude Klett, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 19 Apr. 2017

"An unsuccessful indie actress … tries to hornswoggle a celebrity into appearing in the film she's making as a last-ditch attempt to rescue her career." — Dave Kehr, The New York Times, 5 May 2013

Did You Know?

Hornswoggle is a slang word of some considerable mystery, at least where its etymology is concerned. The word appears to have originated in the southern United States in the early 19th century. The earliest known written record comes from an 1829 issue of The Virginia Literary Magazine in its glossary of Americanisms. The magazine states that hornswoggle came from Kentucky, and its oddness matches nicely with other 19th-century Americanisms, such as sockdolager, absquatulate, callithump, slumgullion, and skedaddle. While the exact point at which hornswoggle entered our language, and the way in which it was formed, may remain unknown, it is a charming addition to our language, joining bamboozle and honeyfuggle as colorful ways to say "to deceive."