humbug

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Dishonest talk or behaviour meant to trick people; nonsense.

   He dismissed the salesman's promises as complete humbug.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who deceives others by pretending to be something they are not.

   The so-called expert turned out to be a humbug.

3. 3
   noun

   A hard, striped peppermint sweet.

   Grandma always kept a bag of humbugs in her coat pocket.

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 w…

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