humbug

Spoto’s work is not fully dismissed, but he’s often thought of as something of an academic humbug.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Boss Tweed is buried at Green-Wood, as are Jean-Michel Basquiat and Frank Morgan, who played the humbug Wizard in “The Wizard of Oz.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2025

"Raising money and going for valuation every few days is all humbug."

From BBC ● Mar. 10, 2024

If holiday clutter has you more bah humbug than merry, these tips from professional organizers around Seattle might make your life easier before and after the holidays, and well into the new year.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 15, 2023

Much of her lore was mere rubbish and humbug, nor did she know the true spells from the false.

From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin

“He used these humbugs, as he called them, to create excitement and bring people in,” Wilson says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 25, 2026

Joined by his wife Katie, he plunges into another assignment, as he tries to get the "spirit of Christmas" back from the dastardly humbugs.

From BBC ● Nov. 13, 2024

In Poe’s lifetime, a handful of well-connected American scientists advanced plans to build national institutions to distinguish “real working men in the way of science” from charlatans, quacks, and humbugs.

From Slate ● Aug. 2, 2021

Chronicling the history of such fakers as Smelcer, Young offers a long history of the hoax, beginning with a series of famous humbugs from P. T. Barnum’s sideshow.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2017

A reporter crowed, “It has become a settled fact that Burr’s and the Buffalo doctors’ theories are the silliest humbugs of the day.”

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

“Because,” he added, “Although I ain’t been in the city long, I ain’t to be humbugged; it won’t do for you to try to put off your confounded mock turtles on me!”

From Slate ● Apr. 29, 2018

P. T. Barnum recorded the fact that the American people delight in being humbugged, and such is still the national mood.

From Time Magazine Archive

The sooner America knows we are not going to be humbugged the better it is.

From Time Magazine Archive

A little inside information on this hidden side of the showman's business may be entertaining to a public which has often experienced the pleasure of being humbugged.

From Sawdust & Spangles Stories & Secrets of the Circus by W. C. Coup

I might have humbugged them into waiting a minute or two.

From The House 'Round the Corner by Louis Tracy

Stranded in his "useless position" at Transport, Reith seethed while Churchill put together his "rotten" wartime coalition full of "humbugging and sycophantic" ministers.

From Time Magazine Archive

I’ll take precious care nobody don’t come the humbugging game over her.

From The Fatal Cord And The Falcon Rover by Mayne Reid

Indeed, we made two several attempts at knocking the island out of the water, each sufficiently distinct to have made any ordinary sailorman in his sane senses get snugly to sea without further humbugging.

From The Recipe for Diamonds by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

“Look here,” he added, calling the detective on one side, “that fellow is an infernal scoundrel, and are you sure he is not humbugging us?”

From Luck at the Diamond Fields by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

Deuce take it, sir, you know you are only humbugging me,—what's the use of talking about it?”

From Uncle's dream; And The Permanent Husband by Fyodor Dostoyevsky