poppycock

noun

pop·​py·​cock ˈpä-pē-ˌkäk 

: empty talk or writing : nonsense

Synonyms

• applesauce [slang]
• balderdash
• baloney
• boloney
• beans
• bilge
• blah
• blah-blah
• blarney
• blather
• blatherskite
• blither
• bosh
• bull [slang]
• bunk
• bunkum
• buncombe
• claptrap
• codswallop [British]
• crapola [slang]
• crock
• drivel
• drool
• fiddle
• fiddle-faddle
• fiddlesticks
• flannel [British]
• flapdoodle
• folderol
• falderal
• folly
• foolishness
• fudge
• garbage
• guff
• hogwash
• hokeypokey
• hokum
• hoodoo
• hooey
• horsefeathers [slang]
• humbug
• humbuggery
• jazz
• malarkey
• malarky
• moonshine
• muck
• nerts [slang]
• nonsense
• nuts
• piffle
• punk
• rot
• rubbish
• senselessness
• silliness
• slush
• stupidity
• taradiddle
• tarradiddle
• tommyrot
• tosh
• trash
• trumpery
• twaddle

Examples of poppycock in a Sentence

That's a lot of poppycock!

starting with the cherry tree, much of what was written by Washington's early biographers was pure poppycock

Recent Examples on the Web

Buckingham Palace simply couldn’t abide someone in its circle saying poppycock. —Vulture, 29 Aug. 2023

This is, as Raymond Reddington might say, utter poppycock. —Tanya Melendez, EW.com, 3 Apr. 2023

That's all a bunch of poppycock. —Dalton Ross, EW.com, 20 Oct. 2022

McVay was tired of the poppycock. —Dallas News, 21 Sep. 2021

The notion that price is a construct is poppycock. —Roger Valdez, Forbes, 2 Mar. 2021

Taylor had said in the weeks leading up to his exit that Utah was the place for him and that Whittingham was the mentor for him, all of which was poppycock. —Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Dec. 2022

Skeptics pounced on the proclamation as pure poppycock—and for understandable reasons. —Jacob Carpenter, Fortune, 13 May 2022

Others dismiss the idea of such a romance as poppycock. —Colleen A. Sheehan, WSJ, 25 Nov. 2021

Word History

Etymology

Dutch dialect pappekak, literally, soft dung, from Dutch pap pap + kak dung

First Known Use

1852, in the meaning defined above