foofaraw

1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation.
2. A fuss over a trifling matter.

[Probably from Spanish fanfarrón, boaster. See fanfaronade, and from French frou-frou, rustling (of imitative origin).]

Related to fanfaronade and frou-frou, the super-fricative word foofaraw (which essentially means much ado about nothing) was used by Lord Christopher Monckton to make light of Al Gore's environmental documentary, An Inconvenient Truth:

"Monckton said, 'A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore's film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.'"

Link: Al Gore Challenged to Climate Debate

Posted March 20, 2007.

See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words.