Spoof

How to spell spoof

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spoof

What does spoof mean?

1. nounA humorous imitation that mocks something by exaggerating its style.
2. verbTo imitate something in a humorous, exaggerated way.
3. verbTo deceive a system or person by faking an identity, address or signal.

Spoof in a sentence

• noun

  The comedy show opened with a clever spoof of a daytime cooking programme.

• verb

  The sketch writers love to spoof the pompous tone of political debates.

• verb

  Scammers can spoof a phone number so the call looks like it comes from your bank.

• noun

  Their advert was a gentle spoof of every gym commercial ever made.

• verb

  Comedians often spoof famous speeches for laughs.

• verb

  Attackers tried to spoof the company email domain to send fake invoices.

Where does spoof come from?

Language of origin: Other

This is one of the rare modern words with a documented inventor. It was coined in the 1880s by the British comedian Arthur Roberts as the name of a card and dice game that involved nonsense, hoaxing and tricking other players. The word itself was a deliberate piece of made-up sounding silliness, with no older root behind it, which is why it carries that comic, lightweight feel. From the game it quickly broadened to mean a hoax or a piece of light-hearted trickery, and then a humorous imitation or parody. In the late twentieth century it took on a precise technical sense in computing, where to spoof a system means to fool it by faking an address or identity. The plain four-letter spelling rarely trips anyone up, although the double 'o' is the only feature to watch.

How the word is built

• spoof (a single unanalysable root; coined as the name of a Victorian hoaxing game, with no prefix or suffix)