pooh-pooh, v.
(puːˈpuː)
[f. prec. int.]
trans. To express contempt or disdain for; to make light of, dismiss as unworthy of notice.
| 1827 J. W. Croker Diary Feb. (1884) I. xii. 365 Peel pooh-poohed that difficulty. 1840 Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. i. Leech of Folkest. (1877) 376 An old gentleman..was deservedly pooh-pooh'd down. 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke xxxii, [They] pooh-poohed away every attempt at further enlargement of the suffrage. 1854 Huxley in Life (1900) I. viii. 119 A stipend..between {pstlg}800 and {pstlg}1200 a year is not to be pooh-poohed. 1893 Times 22 Apr., Mr. Gladstone cannot pooh-pooh difficulties in Committee. 1926 [see à la phr. c]. 1957 Observer 29 Sept. 13/4 It is one thing to pooh-pooh the final scene as melodrama..and quite another thing to remain detached as Salome lies, on your own fireside, intoxicated with passion. 1962 Hovering Craft & Hydrofoil Nov. 20/2 A few years ago most of us would have pooh-poohed the idea of a modern version of Jules Verne's atom-powered ‘Nautilus’, which has since become a reality several times over. 1971 Petticoat 24 July 39/1 If he refuses, or pooh-poohs your concern, go to a new family doctor, and try again. 1977 New Yorker 27 June 30/3 My companion pooh-poohed the mishap and bade me choose an apéritif. |
Hence pooh-ˈpooher, pooh-ˈpoohist; pooh-ˈpoohing vbl. n. and ppl. a.; pooh-ˈpoohingly adv., in a dismissive or contemptuous manner, pooh-ˈpoohy a. (nonce), inclined to pooh-pooh.
| 1841 Dickens Let. 2 Apr. (1969) II. 249 The pooh-poohers and Lord Burleighs have it hollow, all the world through. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes xxv, Slatter..was..silenced by the unanimous pooh-poohing of the assembly. 1861 W. H. W[hite] in Rec. Astro-meteorol. Soc. No. i. 13, I mean the Pooh-poohists. These objectors..rear high their crests on the announcement of any novelty in practical science. 1862 Furnivall Let. to Sub-editors N.E. Dict. 4, I believe that more roots will prove to be imsons than is supposed by pooh-poohers of the bow-wow theory. 1876 H. Parry Diary in C. L. Graves Hubert Parry (1926) I. 169 Before the performance I met Otto Goldschmidt, and he was rather pooh-poohy about it. 1898 W. James Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 423 Concerning this question, at any rate, the positivists and pooh-poohers of metaphysics are in the wrong. 1906 Sladen Lovers Japan iv, I had not the courage to tell her pooh-poohing uncle so. 1911 G. B. Shaw Doctor's Dilemma p. lvii, The moment his practice is tracked down to its source in human passion there is a great and quite sincere poohpoohing..from the mass of the public. 1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake iii. 498 The poohpooher old bossloose, with his arthurious clayroses..busted to the wurld at large. 1956 Poohpooingly [see Borrovian n. and a.]. 1959 Economist 7 Feb. 490/1 For all his pooh-poohing of ‘sentimentalism’, he admitted that he never heard ‘God Save the Queen’..without feeling tears in his eyes. |