Buffle

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To confuse or bewilder someone, leaving them uncertain or at a loss
2. To perplex or puzzle someone so thoroughly that they cannot easily understand or respond
3. To mystify or confound someone by presenting something difficult to comprehend or explain

Etymology: "Buffle" is a word meaning a buffalo or buffalo hide, borrowed from Middle French "buffle". Its real interest lies in its relatives: it is a doublet of "buffalo" and "bubale", meaning that all three come from the same ancient source but reached English by different routes. The shared ancestor is Latin "bubalus", a word for a wild ox or antelope, itself borrowed from Greek "boubalos". The different routes explain the different shapes. "Buffalo" came into English from Italian and Portuguese-speaking travellers' accounts, while "bubale" was borrowed directly from Late Latin and Greek-derived scientific usage for an African antelope. "Buffle" took the French path, which is why it looks closest to a French word, and it is the form that has stayed mostly in the older, literary or specialist sense of buffalo leather.