pooh-poohing

verb

variants also poohing
present participle of pooh-pooh
as in dismissing
informal to think or say that (something) is not very good or not true They pooh-poohed my suggestion. He pooh-poohed the idea that the house was haunted.

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pooh-poohing
  1. dismissing
  2. rejecting
  3. ignoring
Verb
  • Department of Defense Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael addressed Luckey's involvement with the Pentagon in comments to CNBC on Tuesday, dismissing any concerns about a potential conflict of interest.
    — Samantha Subin, CNBC, 6 Oct. 2026
  • Vance’s comments last week came in response to Cruz openly discussing a potential 2028 run and dismissing a question about whether the vice president had already locked down the party’s nomination with two years to go.
    — Joseph Konig, PEOPLE, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of dismissing
Verb
  • This may involve rejecting a command, removing write access, isolating the AI, transferring control back to the operator or moving equipment into a safe state.
    — Gregory Shahnovsky, Forbes.com, 13 Oct. 2026
  • The sense was that the people who were rejecting the Keynesian model were throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
    — Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 13 Oct. 2026
Definition of rejecting
Verb
  • October 06, 2026 Optimism isn’t about ignoring problems or pretending everything will work out.
    — Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review, 6 Oct. 2026
  • Sutskever is the moral center of the film and grows increasingly uncomfortable as Altman forges ahead with complicated AI models that have learned how to lie, willfully ignoring risks.
    — Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of ignoring
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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pooh-poohed
pooh-poohing
pooh-poohs
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Cite this Entry

“Pooh-poohing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pooh-poohing. Accessed 14 Oct. 2026.

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