humbug

n

1. hoax, fraud, wile, ruse, sham, Archaic. chouse; deception, delusion, imposition, imposture, artifice, pretense, humbuggery; dissemblance, misrepresentation, falsehood, lie, fabrication, fiction, dodge, blind, feint, shift, Inf. song and dance, Inf. story; swindle, cheat, trickery, trick, confidence game, Sl. con game, Inf. flimflam, Sl. rip-off.

2. imposter, fake, fraud, empiric, charlatan, mountebank, humbugger, Inf. quack, Inf. phony, Australian. bunyip; pretender, feigner, malingerer, masquerade, deceiver, dissembler, inveigler, wolf in sheep's clothing; trickster, bamboozler, swindler, cheater, chiseler, bilker, diddler, sharpie, shark, fast talker, crook, confidence man, Sl. con man, Sl. flimflam man. See cheat(def.1).

3. flummery, trumpery, stuff, Inf. hokum, Sl. bull, Sl. applesauce, Sl. eyewash; nonsense, bumkum or buncombe, baloney, Inf. bosh, U.S. Sl. blah, Sl. bunk, Brit. Inf. gammon, Brit. Sl. tosh; rubbish, trash, hogwash, Inf. truck, Inf. rot, Sl. tripe, Sl. garbage, Sl. crap, Sl. crock, Dial. culch. See nonsense(def. 2).

v

4. delude, mislead, bamboozle, Sl. hornswog-gle, pull the wool over [s.o.'s] eyes, take [s.o.] in, cully, cozen, bluff, Inf. buffalo; trick, hoodwink, dupe, gull, fool, chouse; feign, sham, malinger, pretend, dissemble, misrepresent; cheat, swindle, defraud, fleece, rook, bilk, take advantage of, Inf. diddle, Inf. do, Inf. finagle, Sl. burn. See cheat(defs.3, 4).