How to Use puffery in a Sentence

puffery

noun
  • No more of those puffery deadlines that have no stake in the ground.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2021
  • Such was the backlash against its puffery that it was forced to scrap its flotation.
    The Economist, 31 Mar. 2021
  • Even volcanoes known for such puffery don’t make rings all the time.
    Carolyn Wilke, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2023
  • As for hog-tying Whitmer, that was puffery, the defense lawyer claimed.
    Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Investors seem to view his penchant for puffery as a feature rather than a bug.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 28 Sep. 2018
  • People can smell fake gratitude and ego puffery a mile away.
    Amy Blaschka, Forbes, 7 May 2022
  • And as companies try to ride the boom, investors should expect to sort through a lot of AI-ish-sounding puffery.
    Vildana Hajric, Bloomberg.com, 8 June 2023
  • Chutkow also touched on the defense's claims that this case was all about puffery, big talkers engaged in tough talk and blowing off steam.
    Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press, 6 Apr. 2022
  • To some extent, all party Conventions are pageants of paradox and puffery.
    Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 27 Aug. 2020
  • Defense lawyers have maintained that their clients were not part of any real plot to harm anyone, and that they were merely engaged in puffery and tough talk.
    Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press, 16 Jan. 2021
  • The defense says this was all puffery, wanna-be military guys who talked a big game and tried to impress one another.
    Arpan Lobo, Detroit Free Press, 10 Mar. 2022
  • To my eye, Mr. Aron has been parsing his ebullient puffery with appropriate care.
    WSJ, 8 June 2021
  • But the suggestion that there is just one worthy candidate is puffery that disrespects both of them.
    Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Trump’s public persona has been geared toward manic puffery of his own success.
    Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 28 June 2018
  • The defendants also have argued that they were merely engaged in puffery, tough talk, and that this case has been blown out of proportion.
    Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press, 8 Mar. 2022
  • But while those profiles are useful, some people see them as a little more than organized puffery.
    Smriti Rao, Discover Magazine, 1 Apr. 2010
  • The defense has argued that the defendants were merely blowing off steam, and that they were engaged in puffery and tough talk, with no real plan to harm anyone.
    Arpan Lobo, Detroit Free Press, 30 Mar. 2022
  • Tasked with the surreal job of heroizing a product in 30 or 60 seconds, the best of them spin elegant arguments out of puffery.
    Mac Schwerin, The Atlantic, 24 Aug. 2020
  • The nearly 500 pages that follow are rife with this kind of self-congratulatory puffery.
    Peter Bergen, CNN, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Finally, after diving headfirst into bravado and chest puffery all episode, Axe grits his teeth.
    refinery29.com, 21 May 2018
  • This attitude puts the pomp and puffery of premium economy into sharp relief.
    Mac Schwerin, The Atlantic, 29 May 2022
  • The men and women of this sprawling northern county—England's largest—are known for their self-deprecating humor, and love to stick a pin in any kind of puffery, especially their own.
    Joshua Levine, Travel + Leisure, 7 Mar. 2021
  • Unlike harmless advertising puffery around a toothpaste that kills 99.9% of germs, the narrative of 7% growth has done real damage.
    Washington Post, 16 June 2019
  • Embedded in all this puffery was Lyft’s rationale for refusing a refund.
    Sean P. Murphy, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Oct. 2022
  • In a world of puffery, fakery and deception, even a calamitous dose of reality can feel, on some level, reassuring.
    Sam Anderson, New York Times, 3 July 2019
  • Defense lawyers have argued that the defendants had no real plan to kidnap the governor, but were only blowing off steam, talking tough and engaging in puffery.
    Tresa Baldas, USA TODAY, 28 Jan. 2021
  • Trump, perhaps the most animalistic of spirits, may think his constant puffery is boosting markets.
    Anchorage Daily News, 11 Jan. 2018
  • The scam signs listed by the office include: ▪ Unsolicited communication, including message board and blog posts that might be false puffery.
    David J. Neal, miamiherald, 31 Aug. 2017
  • His online magazine was established, Tilson noted, to deliver the honest truth about the food and wine industries, rather than the puffery often found in more commercial publications.
    Steve Lopez Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2021
  • The managers of alternative investments and pension overseers are complicit in the performance puffery.
    Edward Siedle, Forbes, 21 May 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'puffery.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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