[Ads-l] What's etymology of 'boogeyman'?

Robin Hamilton robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM
Thu Nov 5 06:30:46 UTC 2015


It's in the (online) OED under BOGY or BOGEY, n1 -- Compounds.

BOGEY is derived from the earlier BOGLE, n., probably originally Scots. 
There's a long etymological discussion in the OED at that entry.

Further on BOGLE, see the Dictionary of the Scottish Language --  
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/results/bogle

google NGrams might give some insight into its present currency, but that's 
beyond my pay grade.

Robin Hamilton

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From: Meng Lu

I cannot find 'boogeyman' in Oxford English Dictionary. Any interesting
thing to say about the word? What's the etymology? Is it still commonly
used in modern English?

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