bogus

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Fake or not genuine; pretending to be real.

   He was arrested for trying to cash a bogus check at the bank.

2. 2
   adj

   Based on false information or untrue claims.

   The company made bogus promises about how quickly the product would work.

3. 3
   noun

   Counterfeit money.

   The gang had been printing bogus and passing it off in shops.

Simplified etymology

Bogus first appeared in late 18th-century American English as the name of an apparatus for making counterfeit coins, then came to mean ‘counterfeit’ and more generally ‘fraudulent’. Its uncertain source may be New England tantrabogus, perhaps derived from Devon dialect tantarabobs ‘the devil’, or a name for the devil such as bogey. The American slang sense ‘bad’ apparently arose among young computer hackers in the 1970s from a use meaning ‘useless or incorrect’.

Borrowed from Polish Bogus, Boguś, or Romanian Boguș.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary