_Humbug_ (Vol. vii., pp. 550. 631.).--I do not remember any earlier use of
this word than in Fielding's _Amelia_, 1751. Its origin is involved in
obscurity: but may it not be a corruption of the Latin _ambages_, or the
singular ablative _ambage_? which signifies _quibbling, subterfuge_, and
that kind of conduct which is generally supposed to constitute _humbug_. It
is very possible that it may have been pedantically introduced in the
seventeenth century. May, in his translation of Lucan, uses the word
_ambages_ as an English word.