bogus

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“
The legislature of 1855 (often referred to as the bogus legislature) approved the creation of Butler County.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. adjective Counterfeit or fake; not genuine: bogus money; bogus tasks.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (48)

  • The "white Americans won't vote for a black man" canard is bogus, and, frankly, even if it were to be a factor, there is an equal and opposite force at play that is the Obama grassroots organization. —  Jack & Jill Politics
  • I told my students that the charge was bogus, and I still think so. —  South Dakota Politics
  • So if the huffingtonpost articles about the Palin 'baby swap' were all bogus, and the huffingtonpost articles about Palin's 'affair' were all bogus, and the huffingtonpost articles about Palin's tax "evasion" were all bogus .... then why in the world would ANY huffingtonpost articles end up on digg's front page? —  digg.com: Stories / Popular
  • I don't know who is responsible for this misinformation but please help us get the word out that it is bogus, and that when we open casting for any production we announce it on our website —  Narnia Fans
  • The legislature of 1855 (often referred to as the bogus legislature) approved the creation of Butler County. —  El Dorado Times Homepage RSS
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

phony ·  fraudulent ·  valid ·  spurious ·  fake ·  credible ·  unfounded ·  counterfeit ·  specious ·  postal ·  false ·  fictitious
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From obsolete bogus, a device for making counterfeit money.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. A slang word, of which many conjectural explanations have been offered, e. g., that it is a corruption of bagasse, sugar-cane refuse, etc. Dr. Samuel Willard of Chicago, in a letter to the editor of the New English Dict., “quotes from the ‘Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph’ of July 6 and Nov. 2, 1827, the word bogus as a substantive applied to an apparatus for coining false money. Mr. Eber D. Howe, who was then editor of that paper, describes in his ‘Autobiography’ (1878) the discovery of such a piece of mechanism in the hands of a gang of coiners at Painesville in May, 1827; it was a mysterious-looking object, and some one in the crowd styled it a ‘bogus,’ a designation adopted in the succeeding numbers of the paper. Dr. Willard considers this to have been short for tantrabogus, a word familiar to him from his childhood, and which in his father's time was commonly'applied in Vermont to any ill-looking object; he points out that tantarabobs is given in Halliwell as a Devonshire word for the devil. Bogus seems thus to be related to bogy, etc.” (N. English D.) The English dial. word may have been transported to New England and undergone there the alteration to which such terms are subject.
  2. Origin uncertain; perhaps a use of bogus. Some refer it to bagasse, sugar-cane refuse.
 

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/ˈboʊgəs/
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