/ · 1894 Brewer’s · H · Humbug
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A correspondent in Notes and Queries (March 5th, 1892) suggests as the fons et orīgo of this word the Italian Uomo bugiardo, a lying man.
⁂ To hum used to signify “to applaud,” “to pretend admiration,” hence “to flatter,” “to cajole for an end,” “to deceive.”
“He threatened, but behold! ‘twas all a hum.”
Peter Pindar, i. 436.
“‘Gentlemen, this humming [expression of applause] is not at all becoming the gravity of this court.”—State Trials (1660).
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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