Definitions
fraudulent; having a misleading appearance
Word origin
Of unknown origin. Perhaps an alteration of fawny (“gilt brass ring used by swindlers”) (1781), from Irish fáinne (“ring”).
Used in a sentence
“A good jeweler should be able to tell a real stone from a phony one.”
“He claims to be a doctor, but he's nothing but a fast-talking phony.”
“What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer1 curated clues
01“sham”5 letters
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