PHONY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Phony

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/fˈoʊni/ Listen

adjective

phoney adj. (compar. phonier; superl. phoniest) (Also spelled phony)

Imitating something superior; intended to deceive; fraudulent; having a misleading appearance; not genuine; false; counterfeit; fake; as, a phoney diamond; a phoney hundred-dollar bill.

Synonyms: bogus, counterfeit, fake, ersatz; fraudulent; false.

Pretending to be other than one is; putting on false appearances; insincere; hypocritical; of people.

phony adj. (compar. phonier; superl. phoniest) (Also spelled phoney)

Imitating something superior; intended to deceive; fraudulent; having a misleading appearance; not genuine; counterfeit; fake; as, a phony diamond; a phony hundred-dollar bill.

Synonyms: phoney, bogus, counterfeit, fake.

Pretending to be other than one is; putting on false appearances; insincere; hypocritical; of people.

noun

phoney n. (Also spelled phony) Something or someone that is phoney.

phony n. (Also spelled phoney) Something or someone that is phony.

See images of 'Phony'

Etymology of 'Phony'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Phony" Quotes from Famous Books

... it is! Catch Jevne wearing anything that's phony. I saw her at the theatre one night. Dressed! Well, you'd have thought that birds of paradise were national pests, like English sparrows. Not that she looked loud. But that quiet, rich elegance, you know, that just smells of money. ...

— Cheerful--By Request • Edna Ferber

... up was foxy, though," commented Mylert, the burly catcher of the Giants. "There are no 'ifs or ands' about it like most phony stories where the fellow's trying to hedge in case someone comes back at him. It sounds like straight goods. It's the most truthful looking ...

— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... much like deeply pitted pieces of rock. The larger one, roughly pear-shaped and about a quarter of a mile in its greatest dimension, was actually that—a huge hunk of rock. The smaller—much smaller—of the two was not what it appeared to be. It was a phony. Anyone who had been able to conduct a very close personal inspection of it would have recognized it for what it was—a ...

— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... coldly at the pistol, thinking bitterly that this was a hell of a way for it all to finish. "So they got you too," he said. "That little display at the airlock was a phony. You were sent out here to lure me back into the ...

— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance

... replace, cut out, serve as a substitute; step into stand in the shoes of; jury rig, make a shift with, put up with; borrow from Peter to pay Paul, take money out of one pocket and put it in another, cannibalize; commute, redeem, compound for. Adj. substituted &c; ersatz; phony; vicarious, subdititious^. Adv. instead; in place of, in lieu of, in the stead of, in the room of; ...

— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

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