as in hype
information released to the media that is designed to gain public attention or support for a person, business, or cause
the newspaper's local stories are often thinly disguised puffery for area businesses
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Recent Examples of puffery
The defense also has claimed that prosecutors are casting commonplace entrepreneurial puffery as a crime and singling out Watson, a Black founder in a tech world where African American executives have been disproportionately few.
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Paolo Confino, Fortune, 13 June 2024
But overall, there should be a substantial amount of sizzle — or at least copious amounts of hot air and puffery — coming from next week’s upfront presentations.
—Josef Adalian, Vulture, 10 May 2024
This is where the focused music hall puffery of the production helps.
—Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 22 Apr. 2024
That conclusion may sound preposterously quaint to some, unwelcome advice to a few, ridiculous puffery or an impossible goal to still others.
—David Baldacci, Peoplemag, 15 Apr. 2024
See All Example Sentences for puffery
Recent Examples of Synonyms for puffery
Noun
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Against the Horned Frogs, Peat matched the hype, leading the Wildcats with 12 points and five rebounds in the first half.—
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The fuzzy shearling interior and buttery soft suede outer is worth all the hype, and the chestnut hue goes with legit everything.—
Noun
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The show and its publicity tour have dominated social media feeds, group text chats, and even made their way into the conversation on Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper’s New Year’s Eve broadcast.—
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Rivera is demanding $16 million from the ‘DtMF’ rapper and his record label, Rimas Entertainment, for violating her privacy and publicity rights, Rolling Stone and Billboard reported.—
Noun
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The letter cited Boise City Code, which prohibits selling or advertising unlimited alcoholic drinks for a single price.—
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Since the late 1980s, newspapers like the Press and the Post-Gazette have been dying a slow death with loss of circulation and advertising revenue that's all but disappeared since the birth of the internet.—
Noun
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The Hannity segment then turned to the online backlash surrounding actor Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans advertisement.—
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In a separate ruling, in October 2025, the French equalities regulator said Meta’s Facebook algorithm breached France’s anti-discrimination law by displaying different job advertisements to men and women.—
Cite this Entry
“Puffery.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/puffery. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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