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).
Examples of bogus in a Sentence
Carlo Versano, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 July 2025
Verification ensures the credits being traded have a real-world impact and are not bogus.
—Simi Thambi, Forbes.com, 9 July 2025
Johnson’s appointment follows former President Robinson’s resignation in July 2024, amid fallout from a scandal involving a bogus $237 million donation pledge.
—Garrett Shanley, Miami Herald, 19 June 2025
Local and state agencies said Tennesseans are being targeted by new scams seeking money for bogus traffic fines.
—Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean, 6 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for bogus
Cite this Entry
“Bogus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bogus. Accessed 31 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
bogus
adjective
Share