phoney vs phony

Side by side

phoney or phony?

What is the difference between phoney and phony?

phoney means "a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives". phony means "a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives". They are pronounced identically — /ˈfoʊni/ — so only the spelling and the meaning separate them.

Which is more common, phoney or phony?

phony is the more common of the two — banded "Common" against "Familiar" for phoney. Commonness is measured against a large corpus of everyday English, not judged.

Are phoney and phony pronounced the same?

Yes. Both are /ˈfoʊni/, said FOH-nee. Words that sound alike and are spelled differently are homophones, and they are the commonest source of written mix-ups in English.

Can phoney and phony be used in the same place in a sentence?

Both work as noun and adjectives, so they are grammatically interchangeable. That is exactly what makes the meaning difference worth checking.

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