Baloneys

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Financial instruments or tokens of little or no value; insincere or exaggerated statements intended to deceive or impress; something regarded as nonsensical or worthless despite appearing legitimate
2. Items or assertions lacking genuine worth or substance; misleading or deceitful claims made to sway opinion; objects or ideas dismissed as trivial or untrustworthy despite surface appeal
3. Offers or objects considered to have no real merit or authenticity; statements or claims fabricated to mislead or impress others; concepts or articles treated as ludicrous or lacking credibility regardless of presentation

Etymology: "Baloneys" is simply the plural of "baloney," the slang term for pointless untrue statements. The plural form is worth a sentence on its own: the noun is usually used uncountably, so the plural appears mainly when someone wants to stress a string of separate falsehoods. The noun's ancestry is not settled. It is generally treated as a phonetic spelling of "bologna," the name of the sausage, and the pre-sliced American lunch meat known as baloney carries that name in its own right. How a sausage became a byword for nonsense is the open question. One suggestion is that it arose as a minced oath, a milder-sounding substitute for "bullshit," with the sausage name simply borrowed to soften the swear. Another suggestion links it to "balonie," a word in Polari, the coded slang once used by British theatre and fairground performers and by some gay communities. Neither link can be confirmed, so the most secure statement is that the word's sausage sense came first and its figurative sense followed.

Synonyms: nonsense, rubbish, hogwash, drivel, balderdash

Antonyms: truth, fact, reality, sense, logic