puffery

American  

[puhf-uh-ree] / ˈpʌf ə ri /

noun

plural

pufferies

1. undue or exaggerated praise.

2. publicity, acclaim, etc., that is full of undue or exaggerated praise.

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puffery British  

/ ˈpʌfərɪ /

noun

1. informal exaggerated praise, esp in publicity or advertising

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Etymology

Origin of puffery

First recorded in 1730–35; puff (in the sense “to praise with exaggeration”) + -ery

Explanation

When you overdo the praise in order to flatter someone, that's puffery. It's probably puffery if your sister tells you you're the most attractive, smartest, kindest person she knows — right before asking you to loan her 50 dollars. If you exaggerate compliments in order to get something in return, you've engaged in puffery. In addition to this common usage, puffery is also an actual legal term meaning "an exaggeration or statement that no reasonable person would take as factual." So if a furniture company claims in a TV ad that one night's sleep on their mattresses will raise your IQ by 20 points, you can be pretty sure it's puffery.

Example Sentences

To me this all-deafening blast of Puffery, of poor Falsehood grown necessitous, of poor Heart- Atheism fallen now into Enchanted Workhouses, sounds too surely like a Doom's-blast!

From Past and Present by Carlyle, Thomas

To me this all-deafening blast of Puffery, of poor Falsehood grown necessitous, of poor Heart-Atheism fallen now into Enchanted Workhouses, sounds too surely like a Doom's-blast!

From Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. by Carlyle, Thomas

Puffery is the "able editor's" invariable prescription, no matter whether the patient be a moss-grown town, a broken-down political roue—the victim of early indiscretions—or a Cheap-John merchant suffering the first paroxysms of financial dissolution.

From Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 01 by Brann, William Cowper