phony
虚假的,虚假,虚假性,虚伪
Related Words
Definitions
- 1
pho·ni·er, pho·ni·est.
- : not real or genuine; fake; counterfeit: a phony diamond.
- : false or deceiving; not truthful; concocted: a phony explanation.
- : insincere or deceitful; affected or pretentious: a phony sales representative.
- 1
plural pho·nies.
- : something that is phony; a counterfeit or fake.
- : an insincere, pretentious, or deceitful person: He thought my friends were a bunch of phonies.
- 1
pho·nied, pho·ny·ing.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Where does phony come from?
Phony is a word that means “fake” or “made up.” But there is nothing fake about this unusual origin story for the word. While the exact origins of phony are unknown, the word likely comes from an old con known as the fawney rig. Fawney is from an Irish word for “finger ring,” and rig is an old term for a “trick” or “swindle.”As for how the trick worked, the swindler would “accidentally” drop a piece of cheap jewelry in front of their target. Then, they would pick it up while acting relieved that they hadn’t lost such a supposedly valuable ring. If the scheme was a success, they’d sell it to the target for much more than it was actually worth.By the 20th century, the spelling of the word was eventually changed from fawney to phony and came to refer to anything fake or counterfeit.The roots of these other words may get a rise—of laughter or surprise—out of you. Run on over to our roundup of them at “Weird Word Origins That Will Make Your Family Laugh.”
Examples
My goal wasn’t to try to make phony, gourmet Hot Pockets—people have done that before and that didn’t interest me.
Perry, the former governor, who met Ellzey years earlier when he was a pilot with no political connections, relentlessly campaigned for the candidate and got earned media attacking the ads as phony.
Pennsylvania’s agency estimated that nearly 84% of its PUA claims were phony.
Then, using his phony passport, Fred had flown up to Vancouver, leaving James behind with no good options.
As Amy strikes up an increasingly close relationship with Bilel, Profile becomes a portrait of the internet as a vehicle for forming both authentic and phony identities.
It just gets a bit phony whenever she wavers and pretends otherwise.
He was arrested trying to flee to Jordan using phony identification.
Surely they believe as well that the very concept of an ethnic nation “chosen” by God is phony and unjust.
This single program alone has generated tens of thousands of phony Twitterers.
In 2012, Facebook announced that 83 million profiles—pushing 10 percent of the total number on the site—were phony.
I would even, I decided, stoop to having him thrown in jail on a phony charge, if that should be necessary.