baloney, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

baloney n.

also balogne, bologna, bologney, boloney, bolony

[? Bologna sausage; the OED rejects the connection as ‘conjectural’, but note Adams (WesternWords, 1968): ‘Bologna bulls, animals of inferior quality whose meat is used to make Bologna sausage’. Partridge offers Rom. peloné, testicles; thus balls n. (1) or ballocks n. (4)]

1. (orig. US) in fig. senses of worthlessness, both of ideas and individuals.

(a) nonsense, rubbish, humbug.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 22/3: Getting back to this Schultz again, thousands of men who never heard of that combination of sour-kraut and high-toned bolony, gripped their papers and read that his untimely demise had ‘cast a gloom over the whole community of Bungwall Flat,’ and they (the readers) then felt all the better for it.
1922		Eve. News (NY) 23 Jan. 17/2: He shuffled out, muttering something about ‘a lot of baloney’.
1923		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 16: The noive of that egg ringin’ up the boss to tell him how lonesome he is. That’s a lotta balogne.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 10/2: Lot of bologna – Gross exaggeration.
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) Act I: Dis ain’t no Hip, and from your bologney I think you’re full o’ hop.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 43: Who are you handing that boloney to? I’ve conducted Wagnerian op’ra. What do you know about music?
1935		G. Blake Shipbuilders (1954) 149: ‘Baloney!’ he exploded.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 78: Dozens of these women made statements, quite a few of them all boloney.
1940		(con. 1917) S.J. Simonsen Soldier Bill 48: That was the kind of baloney they fed the people in the states and gradually they began to believe it.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 229: ‘A lot of bolony,’ the good unionists scoffed.
1945		A. Kober Parm Me 58: That old baloney about not being a sweetheart.
1949		(con. 1943–5) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 62: I talk a lot of bologna.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 50: Sherwood reckons there’s more boloney talked about the American standard of living than anything else.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 199: You’re riding high on that baloney Monk fed you.
1962		Kerouac letter 31 Mar. in Charters II (1999) 333: Oh well, my next book will certainly not be any more of this boloney about ‘me drinking’ etc.
1964		Larner & Tefferteller Addict in the Street (1966) 57: I thought it was a bunch of baloney.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 135: He gave me the usual baloney about farmers with furrows on their faces.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 80: Sacred bloody baloney!
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 241: I’m tired of this baloney.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 29: They go on about it being, like, business and not personal and all of that baloney.
2010		C. Hiaasen Star Island (2011) 88: You are so full of baloney.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 289/1: balony, balonie rubbish .
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 211: [T]he resurgent church’s bigoted baloney on the subject of chastity.

(b) a worthless, stupid person.

1921		H.C. Witwer Leather Pushers 41: There’s only one way we can absorb enough pennies [...] and that’s for you to bounce some boloney at this fight club.
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) Act I: Dis must be dat bologney’s code so nobody kin git wise to his job – some bozo!
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 84: All Studs had to do [...] was to clean up on a couple of big boloneys.
1936		Wodehouse Young Men in Spats 30: ‘A palooka. [...] Slice him where you like, he was still boloney’.
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 71: She’s too nice a girl to go out with a baloney like that.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 89: That hunk of baloney ... I allude to G. D’Arcy Cheesewright.
1963		(con. 1944) L. Glassop Rats in New Guinea 15: A beautiful hunk of brainless baloney.

1944		O. Ferguson ‘Vocab. for Lakes [etc.]’ AS XIX:2 104: A woman who is neither your sister nor your mother is a dingbat, a baloney, or a split-tail.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 22/2: Baloney. 1. A woman of loose morals.

2. (orig. US, also baloney pony) the penis.

1929		B. Smith ‘My Kitchen Man’ 🎵 Oh, his baloney’s really worth a try / Never fails to satisfy.
1933		Broadway Tattler Feb.: [cartoon caption] Widow Smith Loves Her Boloney. ‘That’s just the size I like, Tony. I’ll take it’.
1941		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 121: She married a fellow named Tony / Who soon found her fucking the pony. / Said he, ‘What’s it got, / My dear, that I’ve not?’ / Sighed she, ‘Just a yard-long bologna.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
[1987		‘Victoria Parker’ Pay for Play Cheerleaders 🌐 Mr. Towson sat in the chair, his pants still around his ankles, his big cock hanging like a ring of bologna on the edge of the cushion].
2002		W. Borden ‘La Pétaudière’ in Libido mag. 🌐 Her applesauce is my appetizer. My chingus? Chow down! She bites my bologna and mangles my masher. She bruises my bratwurst. She schnitzels my wiener. She gallimaufries my gazongas.
2023		Twitter 30 Mar. 🌐 Lauren Boebert’s husband exposed his tattooed baloney pony to a group of teenage girls at a bowling alley snack bar.

In phrases

beat the balogna (v.)

to masturbate.

2002

‘xpi3’ ‘Male & Female Masturbation Terms’ at Spankmag.com 22 Oct. 🌐 Beating the balogna.

bop one’s baloney (v.) (also bop one’s baloney) [bop v. (1)]

to masturbate.

1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 223: It’s too hot to even bop my baloney.
2003		G. Carlin GeorgeCarlin.com 🌐 Masturbation (Male): bop the baloney.

have a baloney colonic (v.)

(US gay) to have anal intercourse.

1989–2003

R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.

hide the baloney (v.)

(US) to have sexual intercourse.

1934

H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 354: Tell ’er wut I wuz doin’, kid. You jew hewhs! We wuz hidin’ de balonee!

ride the baloney pony (v.)

see ride the white pony under pony n.

shoot the baloney (v.) (also throw the baloney ) [shoot v. (5)]

(US) to talk nonsense.

1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 336: to shoot the baloney—to talk nonsense.
1936		A.E. Duckett ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 5 Dec. 7/1: what a surprise! If Lloyd Miller stopped thowing the baloney.

smoke the baloney pony (v.)

to fellate.

2002

C. Stella Jimmy Bench-Press 21: You never know with these people [i.e. homosexuals] [...] they gotta get out and have a smoke on the baloney pony every so often, remind themselves they’re fags.