Hyphenation

bo·ğuş

Synonyms

counterfeit, fake, phony, incorrect, useless, broken, illegal, artificial, dummy, ersatz, false, fictitious, forged, fraudulent, imitation

Antonyms

authentic, genuine, real

Pronunciation

Etymology

() First attested from 1797, as underworld term for counterfeit coins. Meaning of the machine (known as a bogus press) was first attested 1828. Sense of phony paper money as well as a general adjective applied to anything, being less valuable than it first appeared was first attested 1848. Later, the word was applied to anything of poor quality. The current use to mean useless is probably from the slang of computer hackers. The origin is unknown, but there are at least two theories that try to trace its origin: * From Hausa boko, to fake. Since bogus first appeared in the USA, this may be possible that its ancestor was brought there on a slave ship. * From criminal slang as a short form of tantrabogus, a 19th century slang term for a menacing object, making some believe that bogus might be linked to bogy or bogey (see bogeyman). In this sense, Bogus might be related to Bogle - a traditional trickster from the Scottish Borders, noted for achieving acts of household trickery; confusing, but not usually damaging.