Phony

How to spell phony

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce phony

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does phony mean?

1. adjectiveNot genuine; fake or fraudulent.
2. nounA person or thing that is fraudulent or pretends to be something it is not.

Phony in a sentence

• adjective

  The seller was arrested for accepting a phony cheque.

• noun

  The so-called expert was exposed as a phony on national television.

• adjective

  Investigators traced the scam to a phony charity that collected donations.

• noun

  After one meeting the team realised the consultant was a complete phony.

Where does phony come from?

Language of origin: Other

The origin of 'phony' is genuinely murky, and the most widely accepted account traces it to the old British confidence trick called the 'fawney rig', in which a swindler tricked a victim into buying a worthless brass ring while pretending it was solid gold. That word 'fawney' is thought to come from the Irish 'fainne', meaning simply 'ring'. By the late nineteenth century the sense of something fake or fraudulent had attached itself to the term, and the spelling drifted toward 'phony', possibly under the influence of words beginning with 'phon-'. The word became firmly established in American English in the early twentieth century, where the 'ph' spelling is now standard, while British and Canadian writers more often use 'phoney'. Because the 'ph' here does not derive from the usual Greek 'phon' meaning 'sound', the spelling is a coincidence rather than a clue, which is exactly what trips writers up.

How the word is built

• phon- (likely from the slang 'fawney', a fake ring used in a swindle)
• -y (adjective/noun suffix)

British and American spelling

Phony is the American spelling. British English spells it phoney.