Word.ws English Dictionary

fugazi

Syllables: fu·ga·zi/fuˈɡɑːzi/US/fuˈɡɑzi/

fugazi adjective: fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.

Adjective (1)

fugazi

  1. (US, slang, especially during the Vietnam War era) Fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.
    • The two of them were getting bombed on bami-bam, beer, and joints laced with opium. That made answers to questions a long time in coming. "Hey, man, what the fuck can I tell you," said Robbie finally. "All fugazi over here. All fucked up. Number ten. The worst. Don't matter what goes down in this...1982, Marc Olden, chapter 7, in Giri, New York, N.Y.: Arbor House, →ISBN; republished [New York, N.Y.]: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, 2012, →ISBN
    • We didn't know anything was fugazi* until we got to a certain place in the South China Sea. A loudspeaker came over the air, "This is your captain speaking. Be advised that your destination is Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam."1986, Mark Baker, Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, →ISBN, page 32

Adjective (2)

fugazi

  1. (US, slang) Fake.
    • That broad wouldn't have no fugazy diamonds in her house. We had information the broad didn't have no fake jewelry. It's three fucking carats!1987, Joseph D[ominick] Pistone, with Richard Woolley, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (A Signet Book), New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →ISBN; republished as Donnie Brasco, New...
    • JON GRAVELLI: You don't need me to tell you that it's all fugazi; faker than a pair of Vinewood tits.2008 April 29, Dan Houser, Rupert Humphries, Grand Theft Auto IV, New York, N.Y.: Rockstar Games

Noun

fugazi (plural fugazis)

  1. (US, slang) A thing or (less commonly) a person that is fake; a fake, a fraud.
    • I took the diamond and looked it over. "I wouldn't get too excited about it," I said, "because this is fake, a fugazy." […] "It's a fugazy," I said. "Take it home for your kid to play with."1987, Joseph D[ominick] Pistone, with Richard Woolley, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (A Signet Book), New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →ISBN; republished as Donnie Brasco, New...
    • DONNIE BRASCO [Johnny Depp]: Well, you should give it [a diamond] to someone who don't know any better, because that's a fugazi. / LEFTY [Al Pacino]: That's a fugazi? How do you know it's a fugazi? You haven't looked at it for two seconds.1997 February 24, Paul Attanasio, Donnie Brasco

Examples of fugazi in a sentence

  • First time I met her. we were stuck on recon. far from the AO. deep in Indian country. the ops completely fugazi. the horn dead. and my BTO sick as skunkrot.2008, Audrey Shafer, The Mailbox, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 67:
  • Some of Dean Martin's Italian songs are the real thing, others are fugazi.2010, Will Friedwald, “Dean Martin (1917–1995)”, in A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books...
  • Do you know what fugazi is? / JORDAN BELFORT: Fugazi [fuˈɡeɪzi], it's a fake … / MARK HANNA: Yeah, fugazi [fuˈɡeɪzi], fugazi [fuˈɡɑzi].2013 December 17, Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street:
  • One of those fugazis from the North End die from a bleeding hemorrhoid 'n Gargiulo wants me to be a pallbearer?"2011, Dan Ferullo, chapter 7, in Monster Hill, [Morrisville, N.C.]: [Lulu.com], →ISBN, page 298:

Synonyms of fugazi

All synonyms of fugazi

Forms of fugazi

Adjective
alternative formfugazy
alternative formfugaze
Noun
pluralfugazis

Origin of fugazi

Origin unknown; a number of possibilities have been suggested: * One theory is that it is a corruption of French fougasse (“type of land mine”); flame fougasses were used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. * Less plausibly, it might be from English fugacious (“fleeting”) or cognates such as Italian fugace (“fleeting”). * It has also been suggested that it could be an acronym of “fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in [a body bag]”, but this is more likely a backronym, not the origin (compare FUBAR).

Uncertain; said to be of Mafia origin, from the Fugazy Continental limousine company in New York City which was owned by William “Bill” Fugazy, due to its cheesy “look like a rich guy” advertisements of the 1970s and 1980s, or its alleged poor business practices, possibly influenced by Sicilian fu cazzu (“it was nothing”). The word was popularized by the film Donnie Brasco (1997), based on the book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (1987) by American former FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone (born 1939) who used the name “Donnie Brasco” as an undercover alias. First use in English appears c. 1974 in the novel Bones of Contention by Nicholas Gage.

Words that rhyme with fugazi

Questions about fugazi

What does fugazi mean?
Fugazi means fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.
How do you use fugazi in a sentence?
First time I met her. we were stuck on recon. far from the AO. deep in Indian country. the ops completely fugazi. the horn dead. and my BTO sick as skunkrot.
What part of speech is fugazi?
Fugazi can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce fugazi?
Fugazi is pronounced /fuˈɡɑːzi/ (UK).

Words near fugazi in the dictionary

  1. Fugate
  2. Fugates
  3. fugato
  4. fugatos
  5. fugaxin
  6. fugazi
  7. fugazies
  8. fugazis
  9. fugazy
  10. fuge
  11. fugelman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fugazi (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fugazi1.wav.

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