• Pooh-pooh

    Full definition of pooh-pooh

    Verb

    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.
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