Word.ws English Dictionary

fake book

fake book noun: a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs.

Noun

fake book (plural fake books)

  1. A collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs.
    • Contemporary popular music tends to be specific in indicating slash cords, while older fake books generally indicate only root chord names.1986, Michael Esterowitz, How to Play from a Fake Book, Ekay Music, →ISBN, page 34
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fake, book.

Forms of fake book

pluralfake books
alternative formfakebook

Origin of fake book

From fake (verb) + book, since a fake book helps a musician to "fake" knowing how to play a song.

Questions about fake book

What does fake book mean?
Fake book means a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs.
What part of speech is fake book?
Fake book is a noun.
What is the plural of fake book?
The plural of fake book is fake books.

Words near fake book in the dictionary

  1. Fakarava
  2. fake
  3. fake and gay
  4. fake as a two-dollar bill
  5. fake bad
  6. fake book
  7. fake books
  8. fake fan
  9. fake fans
  10. fake fen
  11. fake geek girl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fake book (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fake book.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fake_book. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.