Word.ws English Dictionary

boggled

boggled is the simple past and past participle of boggle.

Meaning of boggle

Verb

boggle (third-person singular simple present boggles, present participle boggling, simple past and past participle boggled)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) (literally or figuratively) to stop or hesitate as if suddenly seeing a bogle.
    • The dogs went on, but the horse boggled at the sudden appearance of the strange beast.
  2. (intransitive) To be bewildered, dumbfounded, or confused.
    • He boggled at the surprising news.
  3. (transitive) To confuse or mystify; overwhelm.
    • The vastness of space really boggles the mind.
  4. (US, dialectal) To embarrass with difficulties; to palter or equivocate; to bungle or botch
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) To dissemble; to play fast and loose (with someone or something).
    • I would be loth to exchange consciences with them, and boggle so with God Almighty; but these men by a new kind of Metaphysick have found out a way to abstract the Person of the King from his Office to make his Soveraigntie a kinde of Platonick Idea hovering in the aire, while they visibly attempt...1643, James Howell, The True Informer, London, page 32
  6. (intransitive) To wiggle the eyes as a result of bruxing.

See all 8 meanings of boggle

Phrases with boggled

Questions about boggled

What is boggled the simple past and past participle of?
Boggled is the simple past and past participle of boggle.

Words near boggled in the dictionary

  1. boggle eyed
  2. boggle-eyed
  3. bogglebo
  4. boggleboe
  5. boggleboes
  6. boggled
  7. boggled down
  8. boggler
  9. bogglers
  10. boggles
  11. bogglesome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boggled (page history and authors); boggle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “boggled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boggled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.