humbuggy

English

Etymology

From humbug +‎ -y.

Adjective

humbuggy (comparative more humbuggy, superlative most humbuggy)

1. Resembling or characteristic of a humbug.
   • 1844, First Fundamental Basis of Prof. Fr’s. Fauvel-Gouraud’s Phreno-Mnemotechnic Principles, Consisting in a Philosophical Decomposition of All the Human Languages in General, and of the English Language in Particular into Articulations and Sounds, New York, N.Y.: […] for the Author by Houel and Macoy, […], page 22:

     A Napoleonist . . . is generally a brave man who holds in decided contempt any . Humbuggy Show.

   • 1849 February 3, “The Colonel’s Club. Meeting CXLVIII.”, in The Literary World; A Journal of Society, Literature, and Art, volume IV, number 105, New York, N.Y.: E[vert] A[ugustus] & G[eorge] L[ong] Duyckinck, […], page 108, column 1:

     The Colonel. De Mortuis nil, but I’m glad, on my honor, that the year 1848 is fairly dead and gone. It was a racketty, troublesome customer. A quarrelsome, cut-throat of a year. There is no peace to its memory. No requiescat in pace for its grave. It ought to be buried under a railroad crossing, with a magnetic telegraph wire stuck through its body. Mr. Stout. My sentiments, Colonel. Figurative of course. The fact is, the past year, to borrow an expression, was very humbuggy. Revolutions are like six barrelled revolvers—figurative, you understand,—for instance, where one barrel hits, five miss.

   • 1854 February, “Editor’s Easy Chair”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume VIII, number XLV, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 415, column 2:

     The audience assembles, and the orator says, ‘You like my plays I wrote them to make money. They are humbug. You come to hear me lecture. I know what succeeds with the public—it is humbug. I—I say it—am a humbugger by profession, and to-morrow evening I invite you, who are so easily humbugged, to come and hear me read a play of mine, which I sold, and hope will succeed, and have therefore made as humbuggy as possible.’

   • 1859, John B. Ireland, Wall-Street to Cashmere. A Journal of Five Years in Asia, Africa, and Europe; […]., New York, N.Y.: […] S. A. Rollo & Co., […]; London: Sampson Low, Son & Co., page 381:

     This morning the people of the house were making a great noise—alternately battling with the Coolies, then turning to me would exclaim most supplicatingly, “Sahib, Sahib.” I asked the head servant what the difficulty was, he coolly replied, without looking up from his work, “Nothing, only they humbuggy very much.” On inquiring of the people, I found the “humbuggy very much” was that the sixteen Coolies refused to pay for their provisions of yesterday and this morning. So I made them “settle up.”

   • 1874 February 19, Edward Lear, “February 17—March 7”, in Ray Murphy, editor, Edward Lear’s Indian Journal, Jarrolds Publishers (London) Ltd, published 1953, page 82:

     I fancy Dholepur is a very mean, humbuggy town; yet just opposite this dak bungalow are a tank and a pagoda, quite lovely.

   • 1970 March 1, Tavy Stone, “The Handy, Dandy, Where-It’s-At Guide For Michigan Tourists On The Gold Coast”, in Detroit Free Press, volume 139, number 301, page 13:

     The Gold Coast is humbuggy and knows it and knows you know it. That’s a lesson pretenders like Las Vegas, L.A., San Juan, Honolulu and Acapulco have yet to learn. They take themselves and their bad taste so seriously. But, though the M.B. to P.B. regulars defect now and then, visiting other promised lands in the approved jetsetty way, they always return to their Atlantis on the Atlantic.