Humbug1. (n.) A hoax; a fraud; an imposter; an imposition under fair pretenses; something contrived in order to deceive and mislead; a trick by cajolery; a hoax.
2. (n.) A spirit of deception; cajolery; trickishness.
3. (n.) One who deceives or misleads; a deceitful or trickish fellow; an impostor.
4. (v. t.) To deceive; to impose; to cajole; to hoax.
Thesaurus Entries
absurdity, acting, affectation, amphigory, appearance, attitudinizing, babble, babblement, balderdash, balls, baloney, bamboozle, beguile, betray, bibble-babble, blabber, blague, blagueur, blather, blatherskite, bluff, bluffer, bluffing, bombast, bosh, bull, bullshit, bunk, bunkum, cajole, charlatan, charlatanism, charlatanry, cheat on, cheating, circumvent, claptrap, color, coloring, conjure, crap, deceive, deception, delude, delusion, diddle, disguise, dissemblance, dissembling, dissimulation, double-cross, double-talk, drivel, drool, dupe, eyewash, facade, face, fake, fakement, faker, fakery, faking, false air, false front, false show, falsity, feigning, feint, fiddle-faddle, fiddledeedee, flam, flapdoodle, flimflam, flummery, folderol, forestall, four-flushing, fourflusher, fraud, front, fudge, fustian, gabble, galimatias, gammon, get around, gibber, gibberish, gibble-gabble, gilt, gloss, gobbledygook, gull, gyp, hoax, hocus-pocus, hogwash, hoke, hokum, hooey, hornswaggle, humbuggery, impersonator, impostor, imposture, jabber, jargon, jiggery-pokery, juggle, let down, malarkey, malingerer, masquerade, meretriciousness, mislead, mock, moonshine, mountebank, mumbo jumbo, narrishkeit, niaiserie, nonsense, ostentation, outmaneuver, outreach, outsmart, outward show, outwit, overreach, pack of nonsense, palaver, phony, piffle, pigeon, play one false, playacting, pose, poser, poseur, posing, posture, prate, prattle, pretender, pretense, pretension, pretext, put something over, quack, quackery, quackishness, quackism, quacksalver, quackster, rant, representation, rigamarole, rigmarole, ringer, rip-off, rodomontade, rot, rubbish, saltimbanco, seeming, sell, semblance, sham, shammer, show, simulacrum, simulation, skimble-skamble, snow, speciousness, spoof, string along, stuff and nonsense, stultiloquence, take in, trash, trick, trumpery, twaddle, twattle, twiddle-twaddle, two-time, vaporing, varnish, waffling, window dressing