Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) nonsense, rubbish, flattery; also attrib.

1828		Niles’ Register XXXV 66/2: ‘Talking to Bunkum!’ This is an old and common saying at Washington, when a member of congress is making one of those hum-drum and unlistened to ‘long talks’ which have lately become so fashionable [DA].
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Sept. 3/2: Notwithstanding all the bunkum of his most sanguine backer, he could not be persuaded to again stand.
1847		J.S. Robb Streaks of Squatter Life 17: To sum it up, it is a little of government—a great deal of ‘bunkum’, sprinkled with a high seasoning of political juggling.
1852		Sydney Morn. Herald 16 July 2/5: Mr HOLROYD replied very briefly, repudiating the idea that his motion was founded on ‘bunkum’ — a slang phrase.
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I 47: It’s all bunkum, you know.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Oct.112/1: Dramatis Personae [...] Lieutenants Lumpkin, Pump, Proser, Growley, Snarley and Bunkum.
1866		Broad Arrow Jack 20: I guess [...] that’s a bit of bunkum.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 69: It’s good Buncombe to have a scape-goat!
1868		‘Parliamentary Vade Mecum’ in Sydney Punch 14 Mar. 8/1: Interjections [...] Bunkum!
1869		Man about Town 13 Nov. 76/3: Hear the loud and boastful swells, Brazen swells! What a tale of buncombe now their oath-crammed language tells.
1870		Sportsman (London) 23 Apr. 4/1: [T]he very able and very bilious gentleman [...] used the old-fashioned bunkum about a woman’s true sphere being that of loving wife and mother.
1873		J. Mair Hbk of Phrases 98: Bunkum. Same as Buncombe.
1877		J. Diprose London Life 19: When an old member of their own body indulges in ‘bunkum,’ he is good-humouredly laughed down.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Feb. 4/4: We can make every allowance for the man’s dread of bookmakers, as the burnt child dreads the fire, but the legislator’s ‘highest considerations’ are all bunkum.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Oct. 1/4: Happily, the working classes are beginning to rise superior to ‘buncombe’ of this description.
1881		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 Jan. 2/2: [C]lergymen [...] have fired their gospel guns — loaded always with the blank cartridges of insincerity and buncombe.
1882		Bristol Magpie 29 June 4/1: What ‘buncombe’ we are expected to swallow now-a-day.
1885		in Punch 14 Nov. 229/2: As to the Mrs. Conover paragraph, it is pure bunkum.
1890		‘’Arry on [...] the Glorious Twelfth’ in Punch 30 Aug. 97/2: ’Arrison talks blooming bunkum, with hadjectives spicy and strong.
1890		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 1 Nov. 7/2: The turn struck me as being nothing more than ‘bumkum’, backed up by cheek.
1893		Colfax Chron. (Grant Parish, LA) 18 Feb. 1/3: For a newspaper editor to gulp down his buncombe and solidly take about the payment of an honest debt as a ‘steal’ . . .
1894		Truth (Sydney) 11 Mar. 4/8: ‘A free country, where there is always a fair field and no favor.’ Ecstatic bunkum.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 27 Apr. 470: One [...] of the many ‘yarns’ in his book was not ‘bunkum’!
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 July 4/1: [headline] Bunkum Betting.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Feb. 4/8: That’s all bunkum.
1909		N.Y. Eve. Post 25 Jan. n.p.: [The speech] is sheer buncombe, of course.
1912		P.C. Wren Dew & Mildew 289: ‘I have always suspected bunkum and trickery’.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 98: He was keyed to Concert Pitch and the Audience was Piped and all the old sure-fire Bokum of a Sentimental Nature simply Killed them.
1914		C. Holme Lonely Plough (1931) 163: Bunkum! [...] You’re talking through your hats. Of course I can’t do it!
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 27 Feb. 3/1: There is a lot of bunkum in the above par .
1915		E. Pound letter 12 Oct. in Paige (1971) 64: Dear H.M.:---- Buncumb about Brooke!
1917		A. Brazil Madcap of the School 65: ‘Bunkum!’ replied Ardiune.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 602: Winner trained by Braine so that Lenehan’s version of the business was all pure buncombe.
1924		F.P. Adams So Much Velvet 55: Your column is buncombe and bluff.
1925		A. Christie Secret of Chimneys (1956) 152: Detective stories are mostly bunkum.
1928		V. Palmer Passage 15: All bunkum! She had said the same sort of thing about Fred.
1930		E. Pound Imaginary Letters 9: Buncombe! Her cousin [...] is ten times better educated.
1935		A. Christie Three Act Tragedy (1964) 33: A lot of that business is all bunkum.
1940		‘Flann O’Brien’ Third Policeman (1974) 73: That remark is what may well be called buncombe.
1945		B. Charles 6 Feb. diary in Garfield Our Hidden Lives (2004) 177: All this ‘austerity’ is largely bunkum [...] I think if the Government continues to force this austerity nonsense on us the people won’t stand for such twaddle.
1950		Chicago Trib. 17 May 18/3: The buncombe and the whoopee end, the whistle stopper’s gang departs [DA].
1954		K. Williams Diaries 29 Jan. 97: Peter Nichols told me this story — it’s the perfect answer to all the psychological bunkum that goes on.
1970		B. Aldiss Hand-Reared Boy 89: The boys were fobbed off with bunkum about not touching anyone you weren’t engaged to.
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 41: ‘Aw, bunkum,’ said Sam.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 188: He regarded the performing arts as so much bunkum.
1999		Guardian 25 Aug. 13: This is all bunkum, they’ve cheated us.
2010		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 23 Mar. 🌐 My knowledge of Afrikaans girls is mainly based on hearsay [...] and populist bunkum.