| Part of Speech | Definition | |
| Verb | 1. Present participle conjugation of the verb hoax.[Eve - graph theoretic] | |
| Verb Base (hoax) | 1. Subject to a playful hoax or joke.[Wordnet]. 2. To deceive by a story or a trick, for sport or mischief; to impose upon sportively.[Websters]. 3. Base verb from the following inflections: hoaxing, hoaxed, hoaxes, hoaxer, hoaxers, hoaxingly and hoaxedly.[Eve - graph theoretic] | |
Sources: compiled from various sources, (under license) copyright 2008. | Top | |
Date "HOAXING" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1811. (references) |
Specialty Definition: HOAXING
| Domain | Definition | ||
| Slang in 1811 | HOAXING. Bantering, ridiculing. Hoaxing a quiz; joking an odd fellow. UNIVERSITY WIT. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | Top | ||
Common Expressions: hoax
| Expressions | Definition | ||
| 2005 Indonesian embassy bioterrorism hoax | The 2005 Indonesian embassy bioterrorism hoax occurred when Indonesian ambassador to Australia Imron Cotan received a suspect letter addressed to himself at the Indonesian Embassy in Australia on June 1 2005. The suspect letter later turned out to be harmless. (references) | ||
| Bathtub hoax | On December 28, 1918, a completely fictional article titled "A Neglected Anniversary" by H.L. Mencken was published in the New York Evening Mail. It was an account of the introduction of the bathtub into the United States, claiming it had been introduced as recently as 1842. The article also claimed that the bathtub had only been introduced in England in 1828. The article went on to describe that the introduction of the bathtub initially was greatly discussed and opposed, until the example of President Millard Fillmore who had a bathtub installed in the White House in 1850 made the invention more broadly acceptable. (references) | ||
| Civil War gold hoax | Civil War Gold Hoax was an 1864 hoax perpetrated by two US journalists to exploit the financial situation during the United States Civil War. (references) | ||
| Diamond hoax of 1872 | The diamond hoax of 1872 triggered a brief diamond craze along the borders of Wyoming and Colorado, USA. (references) | ||
| Dihydrogen monoxide hoax | Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is a somewhat pedantic name for water used in a common hoax that illustrates how ignorance of science can lead to misplaced fears among environmental activists and others. (references) | ||
| Dreadnought hoax | The Dreadnought Hoax was a practical joke pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the warship H.M.S. Dreadnought to a supposed delegation of Abyssinian royals. (references) | ||
| Great Moon Hoax | The Great Moon Hoax was a series of six articles that appeared in the New York Sun beginning on August 25, 1835 about the supposed discovery of life on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, perhaps the best-known astronomer of his day. (references) | ||
| Great Wall of China hoax | The Great Wall of China hoax was a faked story, published in U.S. newspapers on June 25, 1899, about plans to tear down the Great Wall of China. It has been claimed that this newspaper article may have helped ignite the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Paul Harvey and other sources have reported as fact that the 1899 hoax was the cause of the Boxer Rebellion. (references) | ||
| Hoax letter writers | This page talks about various hoax letter writers. (references) | ||
| Monkeyman superhero hoax | British media had a field day and even international news organizations got interested. Would-be-superhero was also mentioned on Have I Got News For You. (references) | ||
| Piltdown hoax | A supposedly primitive man later proven to be a hoax. Source: Wordnet 3.0 Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. | ||
| The Great Oil Sniffer Hoax | In 1979 Elf Aquitaine, the large French oil company, supported development of a new gravity wave-based oil detection system. After spending millions it was revealed to be a scam. Elf lost over $150 million in what is now known as The Great Oil Sniffer Hoax. (references) | ||
| The New York Zoo hoax | The New York Zoo hoax is also known as The Central Park Zoo Escape and the Central Park Menagerie Scare of 1874. It was a hoax perpetrated by the New York Herald about a supposed breakout of animals from the New York Zoo on November 9, 1874. (references) | ||
| U.S. Presidents IQ hoax | Perhaps because the issue of George W. Bush's intelligence has been a popular one, particularly amongst his political opponents, the hoax report was taken to be true in some quarters. The British newspaper The Guardian, for example, quoted the report in its diary section of July 19 2001 and used it to belittle Bush (see [http://www.guardian.co.uk/diary/story/0,3604,523939,00.html] below). The Guardian published a retraction two days after the Associated Press drew attention to the error. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | Top | ||
Specialty Expressions: hoax
| Expressions | Domain | Definition | |
| Category: Hoax | Military | Usually an email that gets mailed in chain letter fashion describing some devastating highly unlikely type of virus, you can usually spot a hoax because there's no file attachment, no reference to a third party who can validate the claim and the general 'tone' of the message. (references) | |
| Hoax virus | Computing | Not a virus, but usually a deliberate or unintentional e-message warning people about a virus or other malicious software program. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | Top | ||
