Word.ws English Dictionary

phoney war

phoney war is the alternative letter-case form of Phoney War.

Proper noun capitalized: Phoney War

the Phoney War

  1. (historical) During World War II, the period of limited military activity from the outbreak of hostilities on September 3rd, 1939 until Germany's attack on the Low Countries on May 10th, 1940.
    • Study of the Phoney War, especially on the Franco-German front, is still limited.2019, Maude Williams, Bernard Wilkin, French Soldiers' Morale in the Phoney War, 1939–1940, Routledge, →ISBN

Forms of phoney war

alternative formPhony War
alternative formphoney war

Origin of phoney war

Attributed to US senator William Borah.

Questions about phoney war

What does phoney war mean?
Phoney war means during World War II, the period of limited military activity from the outbreak of hostilities on September 3rd, 1939 until Germany's attack on the Low Countries on May 10th, 1940.
What is phoney war the alternative letter-case form of?
Phoney war is the alternative letter-case form of Phoney War.
What part of speech is phoney war?
Phoney war is a proper noun.

Words near phoney war in the dictionary

  1. phonewise
  2. phoneword
  3. phonewords
  4. phoney
  5. phoney up
  6. phoney war
  7. phoney-baloney
  8. phoneyed
  9. phoneyed up
  10. phoneying
  11. phoneying up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phoney war (page history and authors); Phoney War (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: “phoney war.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phoney_war. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.