Friday, April 6, 2007

Flabbergasted!

Flabbergasted. What a word. I wonder who ever thought of it. Words are invented, not discovered. What in the world is flabber?
I think most people know what it means, but just to be clear, flabbergast means to surprise, astonish, or confound. There is no etymology listed, in my dictionary, it says, origin obscure. I will check this in my Huge, Unabridged Dictionary later and let you know. I’m sure it has a very interesting history.
Other flamboyant words:
Flim-flammed, flambasted, flamboozled?
Flam booz le is not in my dictionary. It means to deceive or confound.
Flam boy ant 1. highly elaborate, ornate, showy. 2. vivid, resplendent. 3. having waved lines and flamelike forms, in architecture. From Old French, flamboyer, to blaze.
Flim-flam 1. nonsense. 2. a deception, a swindle. From Old Norse, through Danish, via German.

Enough of this frippery (trivia)!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what does flambasted mean? You didn't define it!

Anonymous said...

I was flambasted once.