Bogus

How to spell bogus

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bogus

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bogus mean?

1. adjectiveNot genuine or true; fake, counterfeit, or fraudulent.

Bogus in a sentence

• The caller used a bogus charity to collect donations.

• The bank flagged several bogus transactions on the account.

Where does bogus come from?

Language of origin: Other

Bogus is an Americanism that first surfaced in the early nineteenth century, around the 1820s, where it named an apparatus used by counterfeiters to strike fake coins. From the name of the machine the word slid naturally to describe the false money it produced, and from there to anything counterfeit, sham, or not genuine. The deeper origin is genuinely murky: one popular suggestion links it to 'tantrabogus', a New England dialect term for a misshapen or ugly object, while others have floated a connection to a swindler's name or to the word 'bogey'. Because none of these explanations can be proven, scholars treat the ultimate source as uncertain. What is clear is that the modern spelling has stayed remarkably stable, with no fussy silent letters, which is why it tends to trip people up only on whether it ends in -us or -ous.

How the word is built

• bogus (a single opaque root; no separable prefix or suffix)