Definition of "phony"

phony

/ˈfoʊni/

adjective
comparative phonier, superlative phoniest
1. (informal) Fraudulent; fake; having a misleading appearance.
noun
plural phonies
1. (informal) A person who assumes an identity or quality other than their own.
  Quotations
  What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.
  1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, page 164
2. (informal) A person who professes beliefs or opinions that they do not hold.
3. (informal) Anything fraudulent or fake.
  Quotations
  One name was a phony, but the other was the true name. The clerk remembered the man who had filed the tags since he acquired two sets of plates with different names.
  2013, John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, Crime Classification Manual, page 131
verb
third-person singular simple present phonies, present participle phonying, simple past and past participle phonied
1. (informal) To fake.