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
Times Literary Supplement2
: an attitude or spirit of pretense and deception
in all his humbug, in all his malice and hollowness—Mary Lindsay
Mary Lindsay4
British
: a hard usually peppermint-flavored candy
humbugged; humbugging
: to engage in a hoax or deception
Synonyms
Noun
Verb
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
Grrlscientist, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
Fields' Wizard would've been more of a con-man while Morgan played him as a frightened little humbug.
—Jeff Labrecque, EW.com, 17 June 2024
Elizabeth Wolfe and Douglas S. Wood, CNN, 21 Dec. 2019
See all Example Sentences for humbug 
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Noun
These small marine reef fish are often known by the peculiar common name, the humbug damselfish (Figure 1).
—Grrlscientist, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
Fields' Wizard would've been more of a con-man while Morgan played him as a frightened little humbug.
—Jeff Labrecque, EW.com, 17 June 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
See all Example Sentences for humbug
Dictionary Entries Near humbug
Cite this Entry
“Humbug.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humbug. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
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