Word.ws English Dictionary

boggling

boggling is the present participle and gerund 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

Adjective

boggling (comparative more boggling, superlative most boggling)

  1. Stupefying; mind-boggling.
    • The no answer has to do with the general perspective. As Rick wrote from Africa, “The whole idea is so boggling' and awesome that it is almost too much to get nervous about. Our worry quotas don’t include things like “Today’ show appearances.”1984, Joan Scobey, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, St. Martin’s/Marek, page 101

Noun

boggling (plural bogglings)

  1. The condition of being bewildered or mystified.
    • Imagine all of Europe speaking Chinese. To even begin to imagine it brings on bogglings of the mind and other parts of the body.2011, Oona Frawley, Memory Ireland: Volume 1: History and Modernity, page 227

Forms of boggling

Adjective
comparativemore boggling
superlativemost boggling
Noun
pluralbogglings

Phrases with boggling

Questions about boggling

What does boggling mean?
Boggling means stupefying; mind-boggling.
What is boggling the present participle and gerund of?
Boggling is the present participle and gerund of boggle.
What part of speech is boggling?
Boggling can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near boggling in the dictionary

  1. boggled down
  2. boggler
  3. bogglers
  4. boggles
  5. bogglesome
  6. boggling
  7. bogglingly
  8. bogglings
  9. bogglish
  10. boggo
  11. Boggs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boggling (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: “boggling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boggling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.