foo
UK/fuː/
foo is the alternative form of fu.
foo is the alternative letter-case form of Foo.
foo is the pronunciation spelling of fool.
Meaning of fu
Noun (1)
fu (plural fus)
Noun (2)
fu (plural fu)
Noun (3)
fu (uncountable)
- kung fu
- But the commercial timing was right—fu flicks were everywhere, and David Carradine and Bruce Lee were cult figures.1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 315
Meaning of fool
Noun
fool (plural fools)
- A person with poor judgment or little intelligence.
- You were a fool to cross that busy road without looking.
- A jester; a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court (or lower personages).
- This court fool could say bright things on occasion, but his main use to the ladies and lords of the palace was to serve as victim to practical jokes, cruel, coarse, and vulgar enough to be appreciated perhaps in the Bowery.1896, Frederick Peterson IN Popular Science Monthly Volume 50 December 1896 , Idiots Savants
- A stock character typified by unintelligence, naïveté or lucklessness, usually as a form of comic relief; often used as a source of insight or pathos for the audience, as such characters are generally less bound by social expectations.
- Someone who has been made a fool of or tricked; dupe.
- Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken’d eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
- Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
- Someone who derives pleasure from something specified.
- Can they think me […] their fool or jester?1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […]”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- fan
- An informal greeting akin to buddy, dude, or man.
- Upon opening the door, Trech was suddenly drawn aback by the shocking presence of the armed goon standing directly in front of him. “Yo, what up fool? […]”2010, G.C. Deuce, From the Gutter to the Grave: An American Hood Novel, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 291
Noun
foo (uncountable)
- A metasyntactic variable used to represent an unspecified entity. If part of a series of such entities, it is often the first in the series, and followed immediately by bar.
- Suppose we have two objects, foo and bar.
Interjection
- Expression of disappointment or disgust.
- Oh foo – the cake burnt!
Proper noun capitalized: Foo
Foo
- A mock deity of early science fiction fandom; a fannish ghod.
- Robert Bloch has blown his top. Backwards or forwards (or sideways) Foo ((ugh)) and Ghu ((!)) cannot be united! Does one eat chocolate cake with catsup on it? If you do and enjoy it then go off and be a fooghuist in your own little corner. You may as well worship Roscoe. Or Alpaugh. Foo fans are...1951 November, Pike Pickens, “Sez You”, in Quandry, number 15, archived from the original on 07 Jun 2011
- I imagine it must be pretty discouraging to send out a whole issue of a fanzine and get nothing back but a couple of poctsarcds.^([sic]) I wouldn't know, thank Foo.1955 January, Dean Grennell, “Filler #523”, in Abstract, number 9
Synonyms of foo
Forms of foo
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | foos |
| alternative form | foo' |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | FooFoo |
| alternative form | foofoo |
| alternative form | foo |
Origin of foo
From Mandarin 府 (fǔ).
From Chinese 福 (fú, “fortunate; prosperity, good luck”), via its use as 福星 (Fúxīng, “Jupiter”) in Chinese statues of the Three Lucky Stars, picked up from c. 1935 as a nonsense word in Bill Holman's Smokey Stover comic strip, whence it was picked up by Pogo, Looney Tunes, and others. Used by Jack Speer as the name of a mock god of mimeography in the 1930s. Popularized in computing contexts by the Tech Model Railroad Club's 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language, which incorporated it into a parody of the Buddhist chant om mani padme hum, possibly under the influence of WWII military slang FUBAR, which had been repopularized by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
A minced form of fuck.
Words formed from foo
Phrases with foo
Words that rhyme with foo
Questions about foo
- What does foo mean?
- Foo means a metasyntactic variable used to represent an unspecified entity. If part of a series of such entities, it is often the first in the series, and followed immediately by bar.
- What is foo the alternative form of?
- Foo is the alternative form of fu.
- What part of speech is foo?
- Foo can be a noun, an interjection or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce foo?
- Foo is pronounced /fuː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of foo?
- The plural of foo is foos.
Words near foo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: foo (page history and authors); Foo (page history and authors); fu (page history and authors); fool (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-foo.ogg.
Cite this entry: “foo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/foo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.