bogus

bogus
adjective
bo·;gus ;b;-g;s
Synonyms of bogus
: not genuine : counterfeit, sham
a bogus claim
The evidence was completely bogus.
bogusly adverb
bogusness noun


Did you know?
Bogus Has a Long History

In her 1840 novel A New Home—Who’ll Follow?, author Carolina Kirkland wrote about a scandal affecting the fictitious frontier town of Tinkerville, whose bank vaults were discovered to contain “a heavy charge of broken glass and tenpenny nails, covered above and below with half-dollars, principally ‘bogus.’ Alas! for Tinkerville, and alas, for poor Michigan!” Alas indeed. Bogus (an apparent U.S. coinage) was first used in the argot of wildcat banks (like the one in Tinkerville) as a noun referring to counterfeit money. It later branched out into adjective use meaning “counterfeit or forged.” Although the noun is now obsolete, the adjective is still used today with the same meaning, and is applied not only to phony currency but to anything that is less than genuine, making it part of a treasury of similar words ranging from the very old (sham) to the fairly new (fugazi).

Synonyms
artificial
dummy
ersatz
factitious
fake
false
faux
imitation
imitative
man-made
mimic
mock
pretend
sham
simulated
substitute
synthetic
Examples of bogus in a Sentence
It was just a bogus claim.
The evidence was completely bogus.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Marcia and Carlton Lee said they were locked out of their home for weeks by a squatter who changed the locks and refused to leave, using bogus mortgage documents to falsify ownership.
—The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 30 May 2025
It was produced by Google’s Veo 3, similar to extant bogus news anchor content already proliferating the Internet.
—Michael Ashley, Forbes.com, 30 May 2025
For a few years, according to federal regulators, Cash App didn't have a live customer support line at that time and crooks filled the gap by providing information online for a bogus hotline.
—Susan Tompor, USA Today, 27 May 2025
Half a century after Trump started selling the illusion of exclusivity—through casinos, mail-order steaks, and a bogus university—his family has finally discovered what people will pay for most exorbitantly: access to the top of the U.S. government.
—Evan Osnos, New Yorker, 26 May 2025

Word History
Etymology
obsolete argot bogus counterfeit money

First Known Use
1825, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of bogus was in 1825
See more words from the same year