pooh-pooh

English

Verb

pooh-pooh (third-person singular simple present pooh-poohs, present participle pooh-poohing, simple past and past participle pooh-poohed)

1. (transitive) To dismiss idly, with derision or contempt.
   • 1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, ch. 58,

     When he went abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down France, J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you—would have pooh-pooh'd you, Sir, by the Lord!

   • c1861, William Makepeace Thackery, Roundabout Papers, ch. 3,

     In England, until very late days, we have been accustomed rather to pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote ribbons and crosses tinsel gewgaws, foolish foreign ornaments, and so forth.

   • 2001, London Review of Books, 21 June,

     Pooh-poohing the IPCC's science has been one line of attack by Bush's backers.

   • 2004, London Review of Books, 23 Sep.,

     Clinton haters will pooh-pooh all of these acknowledgements as the index of a compulsive sociability that knows no limits and upholds no standards, a psychic necessity we should not make into a moral virtue.