FOR HALLOWEEN: WORDS THAT MASK, HIDE AND DISGUISE

October is the month ending in Halloween when trick or treaters wander our streets and shopping centers. So, I decided to share some of my favorite odd words, all meaning to trick or deceive.

Hornswoggle is associated with the southern United States and first appeared in the nineteenth century. But its etymology is appropriately a mystery. Some have suggested it is related to the scene of a roped steer—its horns lassoed and the animal shaking its head in disbelief. Could be, but I’ll let you decide.

The next word in my list, bamboozle, has conflicting reports of its origin though the consensus points to its appearance around 1700. One group point to Italian and similar words meaning a very young child with the idea that a child is easily fooled, or a duped person appears to be a confused child. Alternately, Bamboozle may be a borrowed word lifted from a French word meaning to make a baboon out of someone. Seems appropriate to me. Ape costume anyone?

Hoodwink popped up in sixteenth century England and suggests, if your mind tends to the macabre, rather a gruesome origin associated with executions or kidnappings. If not, the more innocuous origin is blindfold. The word was once the title of a version of the game Blind Man’s Bluff, a game which appears in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But that’s a later holiday. Still, isn’t a Halloween mask much like a blindfold?

This concludes my short list of odd English words all meaning to trick, deceive or disguise reality. A perfect collection for the night of Halloween trickery, don’t you think?