Bushwa

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 20, 2013

Bushwa \BOOSH-wah, -waw\, noun:

rubbishy nonsense; baloney; bull: You'll hear a lot of boring bushwa about his mechanical skill.

“Bushwa,” she said. “'Bushwa'?” I echoed scornfully. “I suppose that's the high level of intellectual discourse one might expect from the author of the Polly Madison books."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard, 2009

This is all bushwa, if I pressed Butler he would tell me; but I know who they are already.
-- Ward Just, Family Trust, 2007

Bushwa arose in English in the early 1900s, but its origin is unknown. It might be a variation of bourgeois.