bumbaze

PRONUNCIATION:
(buhm-BAYZ)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To bewilder or stupefy.

ETYMOLOGY:
Of uncertain origin, perhaps an alteration of Scots baze (to dismay). Earliest documented use: 1587.

NOTES:
Despite the first impressions or the first syllable, no backside is involved. To be bumbazed is to have your thoughts sent into a maze without a map.

USAGE:
“I hate to observe devoted and intelligent men bumbazed by a bolt from the blue.”
Edwin Morgan; A.D.: A Trilogy on the Life of Jesus; Carcanet; 2000.