humbug

1 of 2

noun

hum·​bug ˈhəm-ˌbəg 

1

a

: something designed to deceive and mislead

Their claims are humbug.

b

: a willfully false, deceptive, or insincere person

He's just an old humbug.

denounced as humbugs the playwrights who magnify the difficulties of their craft

—Times Literary Supplement

2

: an attitude or spirit of pretense and deception

in all his humbug, in all his malice and hollowness

—Mary Lindsay

3

: nonsense, drivel

academic humbug

4

British : a hard usually peppermint-flavored candy

humbuggery

ˈhəm-ˌbə-g(ə-)rē 

noun

humbug

2 of 2

verb

humbugged; humbugging

transitive verb

: deceive, hoax

humbugged by their doctors

—G. B. Shaw

intransitive verb

: to engage in a hoax or deception

Synonyms

Noun

• counterfeit
• fake
• forgery
• hoax
• phony
• phoney
• sham

Verb

• bamboozle
• beguile
• bluff
• buffalo
• burn
• catch
• con
• cozen
• deceive
• delude
• dupe
• fake out
• fool
• gaff
• gammon
• gull
• have
• have on [chiefly British]
• hoax
• hoodwink
• hornswoggle
• juggle
• misguide
• misinform
• mislead
• snooker
• snow
• spoof
• string along
• suck in
• sucker
• take in
• trick

Choose the Right Synonym for humbug

imposture, fraud, sham, fake, humbug, counterfeit mean a thing made to seem other than it is.

imposture applies to any situation in which a spurious object or performance is passed off as genuine.

their claim of environmental concern is an imposture

fraud usually implies a deliberate perversion of the truth.

the diary was exposed as a fraud

sham applies to fraudulent imitation of a real thing or action.

condemned the election as a sham

fake implies an imitation of or substitution for the genuine but does not necessarily imply dishonesty.

these jewels are fakes; the real ones are in the vault

humbug suggests elaborate pretense usually so flagrant as to be transparent.

creating publicity by foisting humbugs on a gullible public

counterfeit applies especially to the close imitation of something valuable.

20-dollar bills that were counterfeits

Examples of humbug in a Sentence

Noun

tests showed that the “old” map of America was a cleverly made humbug

those UFO stories are a lot of humbug

Verb

humbugged into believing that the bones were the skeleton of a prehistoric human being

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

The Wizard of Oz is, and always has been, a humbug. —Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 23 Nov. 2024

These small marine reef fish are often known by the peculiar common name, the humbug damselfish (Figure 1). —Grrlscientist, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024

Verb

In its verb form, to be humbugged is to be deceived or be the victim of a hoax. —Elizabeth Wolfe and Douglas S. Wood, CNN, 21 Dec. 2019

Word History

Etymology

Noun and Verb

origin unknown

First Known Use

Noun

1750, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

1749, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Kids Definition

humbug

noun

hum·​bug

ˈhəm-ˌbəg

1

: a false or deceiving person or thing : fraud

2

: nonsense sense 1, drivel

humbug verb

humbuggery

-ˌbəg-(ə-)rē

noun