different between phony vs deceptive

English

Alternative forms

• phoney (British)

Etymology

Perhaps an alteration of fawney (“gilt brass ring used by swindlers”) (1781), from Irish fáinne (“ring”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?fo?ni/
• Rhymes: -??ni

Adjective

phony (comparative phonier, superlative phoniest)

1. (informal) Fraudulent; fake; having a misleading appearance.

Synonyms

• (fraudulent): bogus, counterfeit, fake
• See also Thesaurus:fake

Antonyms

• authentic
• genuine

Derived terms

• phoniness
• phoneyness
• phony as a three-dollar bill

Translations

Noun

phony (plural phonies)

1. (informal) A person who assumes an identity or quality other than their own.

2. (informal) A person who professes beliefs or opinions that they do not hold.

3. (informal) Anything fraudulent or fake.
   • 2013, John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, Crime Classification Manual (page 131)

     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.

Synonyms

• (faker): dissembler, pretender, fake, faker

Derived terms

• phony up, phoney up
• Phony War, Phoney War

Translations

Verb

phony (third-person singular simple present phonies, present participle phonying, simple past and past participle phonied)

1. To fake.

Anagrams

• hypno-

English

Etymology

From Middle French déceptif, from Latin d?cept?vus, from d?cipi? (“I deceive”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?.?s?p.t?v/

Adjective

deceptive (comparative more deceptive, superlative most deceptive)

1. Likely or attempting to deceive.

   Synonym: misleading

   • 1653, John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, London: William Hunt, Scene 24, p. 521,^[1]

     […] others declare that no Creature can be made or transmuted into a better or worse, or transformed into another species […] and Martinus Delrio the Jesuit accounts this degeneration of Man into a Beast to be an illusion, deceptive and repugnant to Nature;

   • 1789, Thomas Holcroft (translator), The History of My Own Times by Frederick the Great, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 163,^[2]

     […] at the opening of the campaign, the French, after various deceptive attempts on different places, suddenly invested Tournay.

   • 1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W. Parker, 2nd ed., 1847, Preliminary Essay, Chapter 2, p. 10,^[3]

     language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes

   • 1978, Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Chapter 2, p. 13,^[4]

     […] it is characteristic of TB that many of its symptoms are deceptive—liveliness that comes from enervation, rosy cheeks that look like a sign of health but come from fever—and an upsurge of vitality may be a sign of approaching death.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:deceptive

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations