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''flummox'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260829000755-00-⌔

flummox - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

flummox (third-person singular simple present flummoxes, present participle flummoxing, simple past and past participle flummoxed)

  • (transitive) To confuse; to fluster; to flabbergast.
    • ✤ With United’s movement flummoxing the visitors, Berbatov saw his low shot saved well by Ben Foster on his first return to Old Trafford.1
  • (intransitive, uncommon) To give in, to give up, to collapse.

Etymology

Uncertain, probably risen out of a British dialect (OED finds candidate words in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, southern Cheshire, and Sheffield). The formation seems to be onomatopœic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily. [OED].2 First use appears c. 1837 in the writings of Charles Dickens.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈflʌməks/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ʌməks

Printed 2026-08-29.

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Footnotes

  1. 2011 January 22, “Man Utd 5 - 0 Birmingham”, in BBC ‎: ↩

  2. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “flummox”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

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