Humbug

When referring to a person, a humbug means a fraud or impostor, implying an element of unjustified publicity and spectacle.

In modern usage, the word is most associated with the character Ebenezer Scrooge, created by Charles Dickens in his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

Another use of the word was by John Collins Warren, a Harvard Medical School professor who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Warren performed the first public operation with the use of ether anesthesia, administered by William Thomas Green Morton, a dentist.

41, where it is called "a word very much in vogue with the people of taste and fashion", and in Ferdinando Killigrew's The Universal Jester, subtitled "a choice collection of many conceits ... bon-mots and humbugs" from 1754.

Panorama of Humbug. No. 1, making fun of Phineas T. Barnum and Jenny Lind LCCN 2004-665373
Humbugging, or raising the Devil , 1800. Rowlandson 's humbugging depicts the public as a credulous simpleton being distracted by a display of "the miraculous", the better to have his pockets picked.