"He waved a hand, made a pffft sound, told more."
—Steve Ulfelder, The Whole Lie (2012)

"'Pffft.'  She waved away the distinction."
—Leah Braemel, Hidden Heat (2012)

Our friend Jonathan Caws-Elwitt spotted this lovely pfft variant in the wild:


We can verify that p'fft is an appropriate response to "blankety-blank nonsense" (as noted on the first page of Budget Weddings For Dummies).  Relatedly, Wodehouse has written: "He had a dim sort of idea that it began with an F or a G, but beyond that his mind was a blank" (The Small Bachelor).

But did you know that p'fft comes down to us from an ancient Chinese expression meaning, "May your children and grandchildren never murmur as they carry out the careful and brilliant virtue of their predecessors"?

It's commonly assumed that the apostrophe in p'fft stands for an f, the concept being that an f-too-many is overwhelming.  Indeed, Wodehouse notes: "You could have knocked me down with a f" (Right Ho, Jeeves).  Yet the truth is more interesting.  The apostrophe actually stands for a hyphen, swept upwards as it were by the breath of the expression.

"The shed went quiet save for the pfft of Paul dragging on his cigarette." —Screwthedaisies, Things Inside.

"He could hardly be held accountable for determining how much time had passed in her presence, for soon she was gone: 'Pfft,' he expounded." —Joseph Di Prisco, Confessions of Brother Eli

"Don't go pfft. It's true," he said. —Sue Miller, While I Was Gone

"I just — pfft-pfft — spent money like that." —John Miller Chernoff, Hustling is Not Stealing

MORRIS: What does that mean — pfft?
SHLOMO: It means nothing. ... Pfft this, pfft that.
—Allan Knee, Second Avenue Rag

"'Pfft, pfft, pfft,' Mama made spitting noises to drive away the demons." —Sylvia Smoller, Rachel and Aleks

"The pfft! would be complete if I had developed any flair for fiction." —C. H. (Brick) Garrigues

"I've never told you but back in London (that time she was in hospital and refused to see me) she almost gave up the ghost pfft." —Gérard Bessette, Incubation

"The moth bounced against a row of books: pfft, pfft, pfft." —Andrea Barrett, The Voyage of the Narwhal

"Of course, the audience was full of the most dreadful people imaginable, and all these balloons were going pfft, pfft, pfft." —Elton John, The Rolling Stone Interviews

"'Pfft — pfft — pfft!'  That is the stars whistling for the soul of the shaman." —John MacDonald, The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend

"He thought for a second and shpritzed me with four quicker, quieter Bronx cheers: 'Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft.' ... And I had no idea PFFFFFFT was a four-letter word." —Joel Siegel, Lessons For Dylan

"At night, a figure in dungarees with a mop of shaggy hair would have shaken a canister and angrily, joyfully, sprayed graffiti on the substation: pfft!" —Francesca Ferguson, Deutschlandscape

"'Pfft, Pfft . . . Pfft, Pfft . . . Pfft, Pfft' was all that was heard during the next one and half seconds before the lights came back on." —Martin C. Arostegui, Twilight Warriors

"Every spritz makes a pfft." —Wilhelm Genazino, The Shoe Tester of Frankfurt