humbug

CEFRB2

/ˈhʌmbʌɡ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Deceptive or dishonest talk or behavior.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A cheat, fraudster, or hypocrite.

Examples

  • After that realisation, she swore off Facebook and all of its concomitant humbug.

  • My profession? Poet and humbug.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • /ˈhəmˌbəɡ/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A fraud or sham; (uncountable) hypocrisy.

  2. A hoax, jest, or prank.

  3. A type of hard sweet (candy), usually peppermint flavoured with a striped pattern.

More examples

In context

  • "Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

  • Of all trades and arts in repute or possession, / Humbugging is held the most ancient profession. / Twixt nations, and parties, and state politicians, / Prim shopkeepers, jobbers, smooth lawyers, physicians, / Of worth and of wisdom the trial and test / Is—ma...

  • Then again farmers are shamefully, lamentably, sometimes almost ruinously humbugged. All classes it is true are humbugged to a certain extent, but farmers in my view suffer themselves to be fooled and swindled in this respect to a greater degree than any othe...

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

His political campaign speech was full of blank and empty promises.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Origin unknown; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that “the facts as to its origin appear to have been lost, even before the word became common enough to excite attention”. It has been suggested that the word possibly derives from hummer (“(slang) An obvious lie”), or from hum (“(dialectal and slang) to cajole; delude; impose on”) + bug (“a goblin, a spectre”). In his Slang Dictionary (1864), English bibliophile and publisher John Camden Hotten (1832–1873) suggested a link to the name of the German city of Hamburg, “from which town so many false bulletins and reports came during the war in the last century”, or alternatively a derivation from ambage. Hotten also said he had traced...