subs. (journalists’).—The HIGH-FALUTING (q.v.) language so lavishly used by the late P. T. Barnum in advertising the greatest show on earth; exaggeralion of slyle: cf. TELEGRAPHESE. Hence to BARNUMIZE = (1) to exhibit with a lavish display of puffing advertisement; (2) = to talk of (or assert) oneself bombastically in the style of Barnum.
1851. HODGSON, [Life (1883), VI. 87]. BARNUMISED and puffed as Napoleon has been, he is not popular.
1852. Blackwood’s Magazine, lxxii. 307. BARNUMIZING the prodigy through Europe.
1862. Daily Telegraph, 20 Oct. It is BARNUMISM that prompts clergymen to tell their flocks that they must fight the Confederates till Hell freezes, and then fight them on the ice.
