different between quack vs humbug
quack
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kwæk/
- Rhymes: -æk
Etymology 1
From Middle English *quacken, queken (“to croak like a frog; make a noise like a duck, goose, or quail”), from quack, qwacke, quek, queke (“quack”, interjection and noun), also kek, keke, whec-, partly of imitative origin and partly from Middle Dutch quacken (“to croak, quack”), from Old Dutch *kwaken (“to croak, quack”), from Proto-Germanic *kwakan?, *kwak?n? (“to croak”), of imitative origin. Cognate with Saterland Frisian kwoakje, kwaakje (“to quack”), Middle Low German quaken (“to quack, croak”), German quaken (“to quack, croak”), Danish kvække (“to croak”), Swedish kväka (“to croak, quackle”), Norwegian kvekke (“to croak”), Icelandic kvaka (“to twitter, chirp, quack”).
Alternative forms
- quaake (obsolete)
Noun
quack (plural quacks)
- The sound made by a duck.
Translations
Verb
quack (third-person singular simple present quacks, present participle quacking, simple past and past participle quacked)
- To make a noise like a duck.
Derived terms
Translations
References
Etymology 2
Clipping of quacksalver, from Middle Dutch kwaksalver (“hawker of salve”) (modern Dutch kwakzalver), from quacken (“to brag, boast; to croak”). Ultimately related to etymology one, above.
Noun
quack (plural quacks)
- A fraudulent healer or incompetent professional; especially, a doctor of medicine who makes false diagnoses or inappropriate treatment; an impostor who claims to have qualifications to practice medicine. [from c. 1630]
- 1636, John Ford, The Fancies Chaste and Noble
- The very quack of fashions, the very he that / Wears a stiletto on his chin.
- 1662, Rump: or an Exact Collection of the Choycest Poems and Songs Relating to Late Times, Vol. II, by ‘the most Eminent Wits’
- Tis hard to say, how much these Arse-wormes do urge us, We now need no Quack but these Jacks for to purge us, [...]
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 8, The Electon
- ‘if we are ourselves valets, there shall ‘exist no hero for us; we shall not know the hero when we see him;’ - we shall take the quack for a hero; and cry, audibly through all ballot-boxes and machinery whatsoever, Thou art he; be thou King over us!
- 1981, S.O.B. (film):
- Polly (to security guard, referring to Dr. Feingarten): Are you going to let that shyster in there?
- Dr. Feingarten: I could sue you, Polly. A shyster is a disreputable lawyer. I'm a quack.
- 1636, John Ford, The Fancies Chaste and Noble
- A charlatan.
- (slang) A doctor.
Synonyms
- medicaster (dated, now chiefly literary)
- quacksalver
- See also Thesaurus:deceiver
Derived terms
Translations
Verb
quack (third-person singular simple present quacks, present participle quacking, simple past and past participle quacked)
- To practice or commit quackery (fraudulent medicine).
- 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., p. 36,[1]
- […] it is incredible, and scarce to be imagin’d, how the Posts of Houses, and Corners of Streets were plaster’d over with Doctors Bills, and Papers of ignorant Fellows; quacking and tampering in Physick, and inviting the People to come to them for Remedies;
- 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., p. 36,[1]
- (obsolete) To make vain and loud pretensions.
- Synonym: boast
- 1684, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, London, Part 3, Canto 1, p. 18,[2]
- Seek out for Plants with Signatures
- To Quack of Universal Cures
Translations
Adjective
quack (comparative more quack or quacker, superlative most quack or quackest) (quacker and quackest are rare, and probably used humorously)
- Falsely presented as having medicinal powers.
Translations
Further reading
- quack (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- quackery on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
quack From the web:
- what quacks like a duck
- what quack means
- what quackity's real name
- what quackery
- what quacks
- what quackery is snake oil
- what quackery mean
- what quackery is goddess soap
humbug
English
Etymology
Origin unknown; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that “the facts as to its origin appear to have been lost, even before the word became common enough to excite attention”. It has been suggested that the word possibly derives from hummer (“(slang) An obvious lie”), or from hum (“(dialectal and slang) to cajole; delude; impose on”) + bug (“a goblin, a spectre”). In his Slang Dictionary (1872), English bibliophile and publisher John Camden Hotten (1832–1873) suggested a link to the name of the German city of Hamburg, “from which town so many false bulletins and reports came during the war in the last century”.
Hotten also said he had traced the earliest occurrence of the word to the title page of Ferdinando Killigrew’s book The Universal Jester (see quotations), which he dated to about 1735–1740. This dating has therefore been adopted by other dictionaries. However, the OED dates the word to about 1750, as the earliest edition of Killigrew’s work has been dated to 1754.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, Canada) IPA(key): /?h?mb??/
- (General American) IPA(key): /?h?m?b??/
- Hyphenation: hum?bug
Noun
humbug (countable and uncountable, plural humbugs)
- (countable, slang) A hoax, jest, or prank.
- (countable, slang) A fraud or sham; (uncountable) hypocrisy.
- (countable, slang) A cheat, fraudster, or hypocrite.
- (uncountable, slang) Nonsense.
- (countable, Britain) A type of hard sweet (candy), usually peppermint flavoured with a striped pattern.
- (US, countable, slang) Anything complicated, offensive, troublesome, unpleasant or worrying; a misunderstanding, especially if trivial.
- (US, countable, African American Vernacular, slang) A fight.
- (countable, US, African American Vernacular, slang, dated) A gang.
- (countable, US, crime, slang) A false arrest on trumped-up charges.
- (countable, slang, perhaps by extension) The piglet of the wild boar.
Descendants
- ? Finnish: humpuuki
- ? German: Humbug
- ? Hungarian: humbug (perhaps in part through German)
- ? Polish: humbug (perhaps in part through German)
Translations
Interjection
humbug
- (slang) Balderdash!, nonsense!, rubbish!
Verb
humbug (third-person singular simple present humbugs, present participle humbugging, simple past and past participle humbugged)
- (slang) To play a trick on someone, to cheat, to swindle, to deceive.
- 1810, Henry Brooke, “Epilogue on Humbugging”, in Samuel Johnson and Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper; including the Series Edited, with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Dr. Samuel Johnson: And the Most Approved Translations. The Additional Lives by Alexander Chalmers, F.S.A. In Twenty-one Volumes, volume XVII (Glover, Whitehead, Jago, Brooke, Scott, Mickle, Jenyns), London: Printed for J[ames] Johnson; [et al.], OCLC 460902446, page 428:
- Of all trades and arts in repute or possession, / Humbugging is held the most ancient profession. / Twixt nations, and parties, and state politicians, / Prim shopkeepers, jobbers, smooth lawyers, physicians, / Of worth and of wisdom the trial and test / Is—mark ye, my friends!—who shall humbug the best.
- 1873 May 1, John F. French, “Farming—Present and Prospective”, in James O. Adams, New Hampshire Agriculture. Third Annual Report of the Board of Agriculture to His Excellency the Governor, Nashua, N.H.: Orren C. Moore, state printer, OCLC 659327991, pages 204–205:
- Then again farmers are shamefully, lamentably, sometimes almost ruinously humbugged. All classes it is true are humbugged to a certain extent, but farmers in my view suffer themselves to be fooled and swindled in this respect to a greater degree than any other class in the community. They are humbugged in seeds, humbugged in manures, humbugged in agricultural implements, humbugged by agents, humbugged by patent peddlers, humbugged by store-keepers, humbugged by politicians, humbugged by corporations, till finally, some of them are in danger of becoming little less than humbugs themselves.
- 1810, Henry Brooke, “Epilogue on Humbugging”, in Samuel Johnson and Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper; including the Series Edited, with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Dr. Samuel Johnson: And the Most Approved Translations. The Additional Lives by Alexander Chalmers, F.S.A. In Twenty-one Volumes, volume XVII (Glover, Whitehead, Jago, Brooke, Scott, Mickle, Jenyns), London: Printed for J[ames] Johnson; [et al.], OCLC 460902446, page 428:
- (US, African American Vernacular, slang) To fight; to act tough.
- (slang, obsolete) To waste time talking.
Usage notes
The spellings humbuging and humbuged exist, but are not nearly so common as humbugging and humbugged.
Derived terms
- humbugger
- humbuggery
- humbugging (noun)
References
- humbug in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “humbug”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN
- humbug in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
Further reading
- humbug on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Hungarian
Etymology
From English.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [?humbu?]
- Hyphenation: hum?bug
- Rhymes: -u?
Noun
humbug (plural humbugok)
- humbug
Declension
Interjection
humbug
- humbug!
humbug From the web:
- what humbug means
- what's humbug in french
- humbug what does it mean
- what does humbug mean in a christmas carol
- what is humbug candy
- what does humbug mean in parliament
- what does humbuggish mean
- what does humbug tea do
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