Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use bogus in a sentence

26 example sentences · adjective, noun

Bogus means counterfeit or fake; not genuine. Example: “He was arrested for trying to cash a bogus check at the bank.”

Examples of bogus by meaning

adjectiveCounterfeit or fake; not genuine.

  • He was arrested for trying to cash a bogus check at the bank.
  • The organization of “bogus companies,” started purely for the purpose of eliminating competitors, seems to have been a not infrequent practice.1921, Burton J. Hendrick, The Age of Big Business
  • This was the first time that James had met with one of the bogus etymologists common at that period, who believed that the derivation of a word could be solved by finding any foreign word that sounded something like it.1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 53

adjectiveUndesirable or harmful.

  • You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we'll just be bogus too!1982, Cameron Crowe, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, spoken by Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn)

adjectiveOf a totally fictitious issue printed for collectors, often issued on behalf of a non-existent territory or country...

  • Bogus stamps are labels made to deceive stamp collectors.1962, Douglas Patrick, The International Guide to Stamps and Stamp Collecting: Includes the Answers to 1200 Questions Most Often Asked...

nounA liquor made of rum and molasses.

  • "Calibogus," or "bogus" was cold rum and beer unsweetened.1919, Harvey Washington Wiley, Beverages and Their Adulteration: Origin, Composition, Manufacture, Natural, Artificial, Fermented...
  • They combined it with a list of ingredients: rum mixed with hard cider was called stonewall; rum and beer made bogus; rum and molasses made blackstrap.2014, J. Anne Funderburg, Bootleggers and Beer Barons of the Prohibition Era, page 311

nounCounterfeit money.

  • Edward Bonney, a bounty hunter who passed bogus on occasion, claimed to have been working to break up yet another gang operating on the Mississippi with a base at Nauvoo.1994, John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844, →ISBN, pages 269–70

More sentences with bogus

  • The guy tried to hustle me into buying into a bogus real estate deal.From the entry hustle
  • The last century amply demonstrated a link between flaggery and bogus patriotism.2010, Greg Gould, Lesley Boland, Sean Harverson, Caught in the Breeze: 10 Essays, page 83. From the entry flaggery
  • We can see, then, that the alleged inclusiveness and nondenominationality of the school prayer practices were bogus.2008 February 5, Martha Nussbaum, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality, Hachette UK, →ISBN. From the entry nondenominationality
  • In their absence, the rosy, rutilant glow of Stone Canyon Road was rendered bogus and counterfeit.2000, Gerald Clarke, “Production No. 1060—The Wizard of Oz”, in Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland (A Delta Book), New York, N.Y.: Dell…. From the entry rutilant
  • Armies of bogus retuners were expected to steal pensioners' life savings.2000, New Statesman, volume 129, numbers 4493-4505, page 15. From the entry retuner
  • In the face of such phenomena, justice demands protection against bogus and thoughtless égalitarianism.1995, Carlos B. Gutiérrez [ed.], El Trabajo Filosófico de Hoy en el Continente: Actas del XIII Congreso Interamericano de Filosofía…. From the entry égalitarianism
  • 'The office in Cairo is full of bogus half-colonels like me.'1965, Olivia Manning, Friends and Heroes (The Balkan Trilogy; 3), Bath: Chivers, page 895 (in series). From the entry half-colonel
  • But these too were discovered by Miles's vigilant but bogus police, given chase to, and unmercifully clubbed.1900, Allan Pinkerton, Professional Thieves and the Detective. From the entry pipe off
  • It might eventually turn out to be as effective as the Salk vaccine, or as bogus as the science of phrenology.1991, Stephen King, Needful Things. From the entry ultrasound
  • How's tricks?: Like that's bogus syntax, dude?1990 October 8, Steve Senator, “Opportunity for Amusement (Was: Blasted 8 digit error codes!)”, in comp.unix.aix (Usenet), archived from…. From the entry skule
  • The megamachine, as he termed it, engendered a bogus existence—material, intellectual and spiritual—that reduced human endeavor to a series of ciphers.1990 January 27, “Lewis Mumford Dies at 94; A Visionary Social Critic”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 28 Jan…. From the entry megamachine
  • He kept on buying and selling horses, he said, sometimes paying for them in bogus, and sometimes cooning them.1948, John Donald Kingsley, The Antioch Review, volume VIII. From the entry coon
  • Yet the lobbyists’ narrative is bogus.2023 February 17, Michael Hiltzik, “Column: The government crackdown on crypto is well underway. Get out while you can”, in Los Angeles…. From the entry big crypto
  • Totally bogus and totally never changed.2008, Laura Ross, The Valley Girl Turns 40, New York, N.Y.; Bloomington, I.N.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 110. From the entry zod
  • The society assesses these claims in five categories: B (for bogus), E (for extinct), F (for fiction), T (for traditional) and O (for other).1976 March 28, Roy Bongartz, “Nations Off the Beaten Track”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry micropatrology
  • After stuffing themselves and their clients full of dodgy mortgages at bogus prices with shoddy assertions of safety, many of the world's biggest banks toppled when housing prices fell.2015, Jason Zweig, The Devil's Financial Dictionary, PublicAffairs, →ISBN, page 1. From the entry earn
  • And unless there is sound science and the guidance of a good doctor, it’s a pretty bogus way to hedge a bet in that game of parenting roulette.2015 January 26, Petula Dvorak, “Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are putting others at risk”, in The Washington Post. From the entry Bokononism
  • We learn the energy quotient of a bogus Earthling, note how much it varies from that of a genuine one, and then proceed to carefully single out every Neptunian.1952, John Russell Fearn, chapter 12, in Quorne Returns (The Golden Amazon Saga; book 6), [Rockville, Md.]: Wildside Press, published…. From the entry neptunian

Meaning of bogus

  1. adjective Counterfeit or fake; not genuine.
  2. adjective Undesirable or harmful.
  3. adjective Incorrect, useless, or broken.

Full definition of bogus

Questions about bogus in a sentence

How do you use bogus in a sentence?
Bogus is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “He was arrested for trying to cash a bogus check at the bank.”
What is a short sentence with bogus?
“Totally bogus and totally never changed.”
What does bogus mean?
Bogus means counterfeit or fake; not genuine.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bogus (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use bogus in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/bogus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.