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

In a clever touch, Sphere lets us continue to see the monstrous green face, now neutered and ridiculous, mouth along as the panicked geek apologizes for being a humbug.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2025

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

However, far from feeling bah humbug about having to do their job while on holiday, they all love being able to take the stress and strain away from others.

From BBC ● Dec. 22, 2022

Hype and humbug make Barnum's museum a roaring success.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman

“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

Hagrid’s coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets — bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags ... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.

From "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling

“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 sham one you know, would never have humbugged these people for a moment.”

From The Heath Hover Mystery by Bertram Mitford

The reply was: 'I showed Beust your note, and he thinks you have been humbugged.'

From Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II by Edmund Downey

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

Faith, I'd swap soon enough if you weren't humbugging me.

From Where There is Nothing Being Volume I of Plays for an Irish Theatre by W. B. (William Butler) Yeats

“One-fifty a month, and we can have a straight lease—no humbugging about clauses.”

From Polly in New York by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

It was no use humbugging ourselves into thinking we knew where it was, when no one could possibly know.

From Scamping Tricks and Odd Knowledge Occasionally Practised upon Public Works by John Henry Newman

People think I'm humbugging when I say I can't see them.

From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan