English edit

Etymology edit

humbug +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

humbugging (countable and uncountable, plural humbuggings)

  1. An act of one who humbugs (in all senses, for example, swindling, fighting, etc.).
    • 1760 November 1, Horace Mann [Sir Horace Mann, 1st Baronet], “Horace Mann on Sterne’s ‘Humbugging’”, quoted in Alan B. Howes, editor, Laurence Sterne: The Critical Heritage, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1971 (reprinted 1995), ISBN 978-0-415-13425-5, page 104:
      Extract from a letter to Horace Walpole, written from Florence, in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W. S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith, and George L. Lam (1960), p. 446. [] You will laugh at me, I suppose, when I say I don't understand Tristram Shandy, because it was probably the intention of the author that nobody should. It seems to me humbugging, if I have a right notion of an art of talking or writing that has been invented since I left England.
    • 1859, J[ohn] H[enry] P[hillips] [i.e., John Scourfield], “A Welsh Ode. Composed for the Eisteddfod.”, in Lyrics, and Philippics, [s.l.]: Middle Hill Press, OCLC 562485204; reprinted London: G. Norman, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, 1864, OCLC 260327185, page 27:
      My Friends, and Dear Countrymen, do not discard, / The Song and advice of a Patriot Bard, / Who wants you to listen to Cambria's praise, / To keep up old Customs, and walk in old ways, / So sung in Humbugging, and Tomfoolery.
    • 1979, R. Lincoln Keiser, The Vice Lords: Warriors of the Streets (Illinois Collection), New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →OCLC, page 50:
      Vice Lords call fighting humbugging, and robbing hustling. Humbugging is further subdivided: fighting between rival clubs is gangbanging, fighting between individuals is humbugging, and fighting which results when a group of club members goes out to jump on anyone they can find is wolf packing.

Verb edit

humbugging

  1. present participle and gerund of humbug.

Alternative forms edit

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