English

Verb

ballyhooed

1. simple past tense and past participle of ballyhoo

Adjective

ballyhooed ‎(comparative more ballyhooed, superlative most ballyhooed)

1. Sensationalised; presented with grand claims.
   • 1996 — Frasier episode 3.11

     Waitress: There's a man over there who says he's waiting for you.
     Niles: Ah. No doubt the much ballyhooed Bob.

   • 2005 — Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell, p. 175

     "...viewers didn't hate them. They were just shocked by them. And all of the ballyhooed techniques used by the armies of market researchers at CBS utterly failed to distinguish between these two very different emotions."

   • 2007 — Bush Is Losing Credibility On Democracy, Activists Say, Robin Wright, Washington Post, 2007-06-10

     "In Iraq, [director of the American University of Beirut's Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs Rami] Khouri said, the country's vote in January 2005 produced the "much-ballyhooed purple ink-stained finger" but cannot be equated with credible democratic transformation."