The action or practice of reworking, embellishing, or (fraudulently) altering something; an instance of this. Cf. cook, v.1 5, 6. Now rare.

Something that is presented as or purported to be information but is in fact not; insignificant or distracting information. Cf. disinformation, n.

The dissemination of deliberately false information, esp. when supplied by a government or its agent to a foreign power or to the media, with the…