phony as a three-dollar bill
phony as a three-dollar bill adjective: extremely phony; fake; dishonest; completely bogus.
Adjective
phony as a three-dollar bill (not comparable)
- Extremely phony; fake; dishonest; completely bogus.
- Though the film has some handsome, carefully staged action sequences, its machismo seems as phony as a three‐dollar bill.1978 July 2, Vincent Canby, “Film View”, in New York Times, retrieved 23 Jan 2018
- But this chart, originally created by the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Our friends at PolitiFact did a pretty thorough takedown of it in May, giving it their worst rating: “pants on fire.”2011 September 29, Glenn Kessler, “The Fact Checker: A bogus chart on Obama and the debt gets a new lease on life”, in Washington Post, retrieved 23 Jan 2018
Synonyms of phony as a three-dollar bill
Origin of phony as a three-dollar bill
Since three-dollar bills do not exist. The Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Co. in Ohio did issue unofficial three-dollar bills during a banking crisis but they were never legitimate.
Questions about phony as a three-dollar bill
- What does phony as a three-dollar bill mean?
- Phony as a three-dollar bill means extremely phony; fake; dishonest; completely bogus.
- What part of speech is phony as a three-dollar bill?
- Phony as a three-dollar bill is an adjective.
Words near phony as a three-dollar bill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: phony as a three-dollar bill (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: En-au-phony as a three-dollar bill.ogg.
Cite this entry: “phony as a three-dollar bill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phony_as_a_three-dollar_bill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.