puffery

American  

[puhf-uh-ree] / ˈpʌf ə ri /

noun

• pufferies
  plural

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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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pufferies
  plural

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

See Examples For:

puffery pufferies

Is our celebration of a measly 250 years of continuous operation another example of American puffery?

From Slate ● Jul. 4, 2026

Ms. Coppola’s approach doesn’t even rise to the level of the journalism in Vogue, which itself gets lots of puffery.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026

Tesla’s defense in the shareholder case included the argument that statements like those were “mere corporate puffery, vague statements of optimism.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2025

Customers are expected to be smart enough to recognise that ads will often contain a certain amount of "puffery".

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2023

This is especially the case when a new piece is performed from which much is expected, or concerning which, by puffery or for other reasons, the public curiosity has been greatly excited.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 372, October 1846 by Various

Yet it had evidently failed to impress the public of this town, their experiences probably having rendered them sceptical of such pufferies, for the house was miserably bad.

From The Library Magazine of Select Foreign Literature All volumes by Various