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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 'Phoney'

Etymology of 'Phoney'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Phoney" Quotes from Famous Books

... we made out her periscope. Intense joy thrilled our little crew. She was inshore from us. She was between our circular course and the chain nets—in the trap. The periscope we had seen might be a dummy, for a submarine frequently casts loose a phoney periscope to draw fire, but, at any rate, she must have been between us and the nets if she cut ...

— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... most as well as a sourdough!" [1] He paused to take a long, slow swoop of coffee and wipe his mouth with his red bandana. "The whale's head that et Jonah ain't so bad—but them giant hand balls o' stone sounds phoney. . . . You know there seems to be somethin' about this durned country that just nache'ly makes white men—not lie exactly—but sort o' put trimmin's on the truth. . . . I recollect a couple o' yars back when I'm hibernatin' one winter up on the Kuskokwim River with ...

— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... was true, then Effie's Voice was a good deal better than it sounded. She said the Teachers were just crazy about it and all of them agreed that Effie ought to go to Paris or Milan. The slangy Boy with the rag-time Shirt went them one better, and said that all of the phoney Melbas in the country ought to pull for the Old Country and wait until they were ...

— People You Know • George Ade

... of the begging game. One of them had around his arm a plaster of Paris casting, that during his begging trips would be filled with cotton upon which a few drops of carbolic acid or some other "medicinally" smelling liquid had been poured, to give the "phoney" broken-arm trick a cloak of respectability. When not at "work" the "dummy" was shoved far above the boy's elbow and tied so that it did not interfere with his playing "tag", and ...

— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... Maybe the Naturalists are right. Maybe we ought to cut out all this phoney progress and phoney peace that passeth all understanding. I'm no liberal, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think the Naturalists have ...

— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch