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Synonyms

bogus

American  
[boh-guhs] / ˈboʊ gəs /

adjective

  1. not genuine; counterfeit; spurious; sham.

    Synonyms:
    phony, fake, pseudo, fraudulent

noun

  1. Printing, Journalism. matter set, by union requirement, by a compositor and later discarded, duplicating the text of an advertisement for which a plate has been supplied or type set by another publisher.

bogus British  
/ ˈbəʊɡəs /

adjective

  1. spurious or counterfeit; not genuine

    a bogus note
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • bogusly adverb
  • bogusness noun

Etymology

Origin of bogus

1825–30, originally an apparatus for coining false money; perhaps akin to bogy 1

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Posing as cybercriminals, investigators shut down a platform that fueled more than 30 million bogus emails in a single month, they say.

From The Wall Street Journal

As AI falsehoods explode across social media, often outpacing the capacity of professional fact-checkers, bogus detectors risk adding another layer of deception to an already fractured information ecosystem.

From Barron's

Experts said that YouGov's methodology - gathering data from volunteers who received cash rewards for their time - left it vulnerable to "bogus respondents" skewing the data.

From BBC

He pushed for the deputies’ firings because they made “bogus” allegations of corruption against him, Davis said, not because of the HPE deal.

From The Wall Street Journal

“These defendants allegedly fabricated documents, staged bogus equipment to pass audit inventories, and used a pass-through company to conceal their misconduct and true clientele list,” federal prosecutors said.

From MarketWatch

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.