How to Use phony in a Sentence

phony

1 of 2 adjective

• Looking at the world through a frame, the screen, is phony.
  — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 6 Sep. 2022
• The phony headstone had the names of my mother and father on it.
  — Brayden Garcia, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2 Feb. 2024
• The clerk believed the woman may have used phony money to pay for goods.
  — cleveland, 27 Sep. 2022
• What's best, of course, is to avoid those fake texts and phony calls completely.
  — Susan Tompor, USA TODAY, 24 Aug. 2022
• The remaining words were: whoop, phony, chomp, ghoul, chock, and whomp.
  — Erik Kain, Forbes, 6 May 2023
• Mother of mercy, can this be the end of phony election claims?
  — Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune, 20 Aug. 2023
• That’s why phony calls threatening jail time from the IRS work so well.
  — Kim Komando, USA TODAY, 2 Mar. 2022
• And this time, of course, he’s put people in place who will back up his phony claims of winning the election.
  — Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 21 Sep. 2022
• History tells us that a phony nose is as good a way as any to catch the attention of the electorate.
  — Jody Rosen, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2023
• The morning after the fire, Morgan was arrested once again, this time on a phony charge of a $2 debt.
  — Colin Dickey, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 July 2023
• The problem over phony reviews is not new for Amazon, or e-commerce as a whole.
  — Haleluya Hadero, Chicago Tribune, 19 July 2022
• So believes Claudine Gay, a race hire, mediocrity, and phony who plays the victim.
  — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 11 Jan. 2024
• But true talls tend to be wary of phony talls — women in stilettos, for example.
  — Scott Cacciola, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2023
• The indictment contends the tweets about phony voter fraud and even the lawsuit were part of a similar scheme.
  — Nicholas Riccardi and Meg Kinnard, BostonGlobe.com, 15 Aug. 2023
• In 2020, Still served as one of Trump’s phony electors after the then-president lost in Georgia.
  — Sarah D. Wire, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2023
• Wisconsin was one of the seven states for which a list of phony Trump electors was sent to the National Archives.
  — Daniel Dale, CNN, 27 Jan. 2022
• Good to know there is safer phony stuff that multi-billion-dollar teams aren’t using.
  — Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Dec. 2023
• The site featured phony images of fellow Twitch streamers.
  — CBS News, 17 Apr. 2023
• Raise a mock margarita or a phony Negroni — Dry January is once again in full swing.
  — Dani Blum, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2024
• This is dumber than the phony tournament banner the Lakers just raised at Crypto.com Arena.
  — Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2024
• Doing the right thing was Marsha’s credo, and there was never anything phony or self-serving about it.
  — Alan K. Rode, Variety, 10 Sep. 2022
• There was never a circus of fake, phony, lame, press conferences.
  — Rachel Schilke, Washington Examiner, 10 Jan. 2024
• The documents with that phony assertion were sent to Congress.
  — Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic, 9 Oct. 2022
• Part of why Trump could sow such doubt about election integrity during the 2020 election was the sheer audacity of his phony claims.
  — Arkansas Online, 18 Nov. 2022
• And now, a teenager from Lancaster has been arrested on suspicion of phoning in the phony threat.
  — Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2024
• Others posted different views, saying the graffiti was a hoax and the TikTok threats were phony too.
  — Don Stacom, courant.com, 17 Dec. 2021
• When phony politicians try to be relatable, stupid things happen.
  — Jenny Goldsberry, Washington Examiner, 29 Oct. 2023
• Herbert Anderson, whose 2004 case was thrown out Friday, told reporters that Watts and his team planted drugs in his apartment, then pinned a phony case on him.
  — Megan Crepeau, Chicago Tribune, 22 Apr. 2022
• Of course, trying can come off as phony when actors start speaking thoughtfully or — God forbid — get emotional.
  — Jenelle Riley, Variety, 6 Mar. 2024
• Jackie later regarded Robert and his wife, Kitty, as pretentious, phony and tight.
  — Kc Cole, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Mar. 2024

Advertisement

phony

2 of 2 noun

• According to him, politics is full of phonies.
• I don't think she ever meant to help us. What a phony!
• The Catcher in the Rye is Holden Caulfield’s hate of phonies.
  — Tatum Dooley, Teen Vogue, 27 June 2019
• In a world of phonies, Kim Mulkey is anything but fake.
  — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 30 Mar. 2023
• Steuben, though in so many ways a fraud, was not a phony.
  — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 18 July 2021
• Putting on airs or a false front will come off as phony, so be yourself to get the best results.
  — oregonlive, 17 Apr. 2020
• But the screen Larry saw for a bank statement was likely a phony.
  — Dallas News, 21 June 2021
• In the holding cell, the phony inmates prompted Martinez to talk.
  — Teri Figueroa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Sep. 2019
• According to our friend Holden, a phony is a sell-out (one can imagine that Kurt Cobain was a fan of the book).
  — Tatum Dooley, Teen Vogue, 27 June 2019
• Justice’ contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?
  — Peter Baker, New York Times, 26 May 2018
• But the slippers reported to have been in the collector's mansion were phonies, and divers found nothing at the...
  — Kristine Phillips, The Seattle Times, 4 Sep. 2018
• Sounds like a total phony that's only in it for the money anymore.
  — Chris Malone, Billboard, 24 Oct. 2017
• Leland, meanwhile, fancies himself a kind of Holden Caulfield type, too smart for this life, able to see the phonies in a world of hypocrisy.
  — New York Times, 21 June 2018
• Trump on the campaign trail called the unemployment rate phony, so these claims are flip-flops.
  — Salvador Rizzo, Washington Post, 10 July 2018
• Romney had been one of Trump’s most strident critics in the 2016 election, calling him a phony and a fraud.
  — Washington Post, 11 June 2017
• The victim deposits the check, wires the money and the money is long gone before the victim is told the initial check was a phony and did not clear.
  — Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press, 9 Mar. 2018
• The resident was suspicious, confirmed the check was a phony and did not deposit the check.
  — Kimberly Fornek, chicagotribune.com, 2 Nov. 2020
• SEALs can find a phony with only a few questions, so thieves beware.
  — Ed Hiner, sandiegouniontribune.com, 15 May 2017
• Ever attuned to potential scams from phonies and loons alike, our man had seen through it all.
  — Luke O'Neil, Esquire, 5 Jan. 2018
• But the modern mixology craze leaves little room for phonies.
  — Nancy Luna, Orange County Register, 14 June 2017
• Meghan Markle is a little phony for that fake British accent coming through.
  — Kathleen Joyce, Fox News, 2 Oct. 2018
• In trying to weed out a phony, reviewers can consider the slant of the writing and how letters are shaped and spaced.
  — Michael R. Blood and Kathleen Ronayne, USA TODAY, 16 Mar. 2021
• Stretch spouted off numbers about the percentage of ads purchased by the Russian trolls, the reach of those ads, and the total posts these phony accounts shared.
  — Issie Lapowsky, WIRED, 5 Apr. 2018
• Kelly Master knows that women who dance naked for a living can see through phonies instantly.
  — Kevin Riordan, Philly.com, 6 Apr. 2018
• Republicans like Carney, sizing up the trend, say Hegar is a phony.
  — Tom Benning, Dallas News, 28 Oct. 2020
• Feeling like a phony is not uncommon and doesn’t signify that something is wrong with you.
  — Hanna Hart, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
• In the phony-baloney name of their version of safety, the NFL installed a targeting rule without calling it a targeting rule.
  — Steve Rosenbloom, chicagotribune.com, 30 Mar. 2018
• And your stage persona is usually making fun of a show-business-phony-type person.
  — Jesse David Fox, Vulture, 16 Sep. 2021
• But Nez felt like a phony even though the producers placated him by including a couple of his songs on the early albums.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 9 Jan. 2022
• Ryan used his fundraising advantage to flood TV airwaves over the summer, attempting to brand himself as a political independent and define Vance as a phony.
  — Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland, 8 Nov. 2022

Last Updated: 9 Jun 2024