(a.) Contrived for the purpose of making a show, or gaining applause; deceptive; unreal.
Example Sentences:
(1) 'Fashionable theories and permissive claptrap set the scene for a society in which old values of discipline and restraint were denigrated.'
(2) Responding to May’s comments, the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called the slogan “jingoistic claptrap” and said it showed no further policy development.
(3) The fact that he chose possibly the least suitable place, time and context to utter his claptrap, only to fall asleep a little later during the Milan opening of the Shoah museum at which he was attending, might show that he is not as in control of the headlines as he used to be.
(4) Visitors to the US theme park will get "a noisy American" experience, with "claptrap", says Berger, noting that "Harry Potter fans are very passionate people.
(5) UK will have under 18 months to reach deal, says EU Brexit broker Read more The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called the slogan “jingoistic claptrap” and said it showed no further policy development.
(6) To Marr’s perfectly reasonable questions he cried: “BBC claptrap!” God knows, the mayor can turn on the charm like no other politician.
(7) Thus the usual claptrap about "diversity" being something to celebrate is meaningless when it is not publicly acknowledged.
(8) At a recent sermon in Trinity Wall Street in New York City, supposedly the richest Anglican parish in the world, Welby said: “The old sermons that we have heard so often in England, which I grew up with – which if you boiled them down all they effectively said was, ‘Wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if we were all a bit nicer?’ – that is the kind of moral claptrap that Jesus does not permit us to accept.” Welby sounds confused here but since he is by no means an idiot it’s worth trying to think about what it is that makes social media destructive in a way that’s slightly different to all the other ways people can hurt one another.
(9) Defending these changes has spurred local government minister Brandon Lewis to new heights of claptrap.
(10) He went on: "His Thatcherite claptrap shows that this country has passed into the hands of an out-of-touch, unaccountable elite.
(11) It's reprehensible that he talks such claptrap about a policy that is divisive, illogical, illiberal, hypocritical and intended as Valium for the Tory shires hyperventilating over cohabitation with the Liberal-Democrats.
(12) He said: "We should not fall for the Tory claptrap that we left Britain broke and broken."
(13) But bad ideas do thrive in conditions of maximum claptrap.
(14) While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
(15) More importantly these corporations, whether they're selling information or consumer goods, collude in a pervasive myth and toil to keep us uninformed on important matters such as the environment, economic inequality, and distracted by vapid celebrity claptrap.
(16) Don't look for consistency, either: MacMillan could veer between genius, excess and claptrap in a trice – and deciding which is which still divides opinion to this day.
(17) School architecture is just more highfalutin liberal claptrap, governors are " local worthies seeking a badge of status and the chance to waffle about faddy issues ", the national curriculum is a ball and chain, and teachers are part of a leftwing conspiracy.
Humbug
Definition:
(v. t.) To deceive; to impose; to cajole; to hoax.
(n.) An imposition under fair pretenses; something contrived in order to deceive and mislead; a trick by cajolery; a hoax.
(n.) A spirit of deception; cajolery; trickishness.
(n.) One who deceives or misleads; a deceitful or trickish fellow; an impostor.
Example Sentences:
(1) Vice, folly and humbug – it is the point of satire really.
(2) What more timely image could there be for his departure than a Christmas costume and a prescience for all the humbug that will inevitably attend his death.
(3) Shortly after, they began to produce confectioneries such as chocolate limes, humbugs and caramels.
(4) Gary McNair: War on Christmas Anyone who has ever felt like saying “Bah, humbug!” to the John Lewis ad will find a kindred spirit in Gary McNair, playing a Santa working in a down-at-heel Christmas grotto who decides to investigate what Christmas means if you are poor.
(5) But, you may exclaim, what humbug for countries that invaded Iraq to excoriate others for violating sovereignty.
(6) Counties lose their names, trains lose their livery, ginger snaps lose their flavour and mint humbugs their sharp corners ... under my derationalisation programme, Yorkshire would get back its Ridings, the red telephone box would be a preserved species, there would be Pullman cars called Edna, a teashop in every high street and a proper card index in the public library."
(7) Accusing his opponents of "the most blatant hypocrisy in pretending they have changed to a modern, enlightened party", Lord Lester said: "What they have done is seek to destroy the central purpose of the bill under the guise of giving rights to others and it's complete humbug done for electoral purposes."
(8) It has not reached the pitch of disintegration at which humbug can be dropped."
(9) Lymphocystis disease is reported for the first time from the white-tailed damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, and the black-tailed humbug, Dascyllus melanurus.
(10) I thought of the tourist scrums pushing each other off the pavements, jostling for souvenir humbugs and wind-up Beefeaters.
(11) Typical young man's title, you see, typical piece of that sort of humbugging, canting rhetoric, which young men - bless their hearts - specialise in.
(12) We probably all know a few pre-Games humbug-criers – shouting themselves hoarse in stadiums or rapt and sometimes in tears in front of the TV – who have looked like Scrooge on Christmas morning in the last few weeks.
(13) So the return of WTPS may serve to revive the genre, the old ghost donning its armour to do battle once more with humbug and pomposity.
(14) It was a strange experience to hear this paragon of logic, sceptical of all humbug trotting out stories that normally he would have scoffed at.
(15) It's enough to put you off shopping altogether, and has done for Nicole Slavin who is "bah humbug about Christmas , partly because of the commercialisation and the sheer social pressure to buy people things".
(16) For Labour, with the taste of Suez still in their mouths, Hugh Gaitskell described this as "the worst humbug and hypocrisy."
(17) Their latest, Humbug , recorded in the Californian desert with Josh Homme, reveals a more mature, assured band.