Bogus

The answer

PHONY

5 letters. See every clue for this answer on the PHONY answer page.

Used 18 times across 12 distinct years; most recently in 2026; first recorded in 1976. It appears in 11 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other answers for this clue

The same clue has also been answered these ways in the xd corpus. Answers inside this collection link to their own answer page.

• SHAM (59 uses in xd)
• FALSE (35 uses in xd)
• FAKE (27 uses in xd)
• ERSATZ (7 uses in xd)
• PSEUDO (5 uses in xd)

Other clues for PHONY

Every other clue in this collection answered by PHONY, most used first.

• Fake - used 24 times, most recently in 2026
• Counterfeit - used 21 times, most recently in 2026
• Insincere - used 11 times, most recently in 2026
• Charlatan - used 9 times, most recently in 2023
• Ersatz - used 6 times, most recently in 2017
• Impostor - used 6 times, most recently in 2014

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• Bogus - FALSE, used 35 times
• Not bogus - LEGIT, used 8 times

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