Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1886, American English slang, varied reduplication of dazzle (q.v.).\n\nMy confrère, The Chevalier, last month gave a new name to the scarfs of disjointed pattern when he called them the razzle-dazzle. The name was evidently a hit of the most patent character, for in several avenue and Broadway stores the clerks have thrown out a display of broken figures before me and explained that the ruling style at present was the razzle-dazzle, and the word seems to have been equally effective with the public, for when it is quoted by the live salesman, the customer, I am told is at once interested and caught by it.
["Clothier and Furnisher" magazine, Jan. 1889]
\nMeaning "state of confusion" is from 1889.Wiktionary
n. glitz, glamor/glamour, showiness, or pizazz.
WordNet
n. any exciting and complex play intended to confuse (dazzle) the opponent [syn: razzle, razzmatazz, razmataz]
Usage examples of "razzle-dazzle".
Unlike the marks and many of the other carnies, I could not escape all of my worries in the razzle-dazzle of the show, for I kept waiting for the first goblins to appear on the concourse.
Then you should know that after hours - when they turn all the holos off and the place reverts to an ordinary cluster of silvery domes sitting in darkness and eight hundred degree temperature and pressure enough to give you a sinus headache just thinking about it, when they shut off all the tourist razzle-dazzle - it's no trouble to find your way to one of the rental agencies around the spaceport and get medicanical work done.
Then you should know that after hours -when they turn all the holos off and the place reverts to an ordinary cluster of silvery domes sitting in darkness and eight hundred degree temperature and pressure enough to give you a sinus headache just thinking about it, when they shut off all the tourist razzle-dazzle -it's no trouble to find your way to one of the rental agencies around the spaceport and get medicanical work done.
You're still thinking two-dimensionally, still thinking in razzle-dazzle terms instead of strategic, layered, logical, multilayered structures.
Then, with eyes narrowed, she added, “Listen, if that welching cheapskate bookie sent you around to pull some kind of razzle-dazzle on me, you can just scram while you're able to do it under your own power.
There were those who maintained that cameras weren't really scientific instruments, but rather catch-as-catch-can, razzle-dazzle, pandering to the public, and unable to answer a single straightforward, well-posed scientific question.