Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) an excl. of disdain or dismissal, rubbish! nonsense!; thus ext. as phooey on that!; also as n.fooey, nonsense.

[1740		Trial of Charles Drew 22: Pshoo, said Humphries, ther is no more Sin to shoot him, than a Cat, or a Dog].
1902		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 37: (Jackson Is Outpointed By Californian’s Cleverness) Fooey.
1913		T.A. Dorgan Silk Hat Harry’s Divorce Suit 29 May [synd. cartoon strip] Gee whiz. Of all the nonsensical gibberish — Fooey!
1918		J.E. Rendinell diary 17–18 Feb. in One Man’s War (1928) 53: Hauling manure for the frogs. Phooey!
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) II i: But makin’ lampshades – phooey – that’s all wet.
1937		Duckett & Staple ‘Double Feature’ in N.Y. Age 24 Apr. 7/1: This movement [...] is, to our mind, a lot of fooey.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 182: Pfui! What blind tenacity, what clumsy ambitions!
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 149: Phooey. Next time he could keep playing with his beads.
1944		E.S. Gardner Case of the Crooked Candle (1958) 60: Mason said ‘Phooey! The police will smoke all this out.’.
1944		E. Wilson 7 Sept. [synd. col.] 29 papers [...] are for Dewey, four are undecided, and 10 are of the Phooey-on-Dewey school.
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 13: Aw, fooey! I’ll bet he’s a stinger.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 149: Oh, fooey, no. What bushwah! Love, shmuv!
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 150: ‘I got Lennox killed, mister. I got him killed.’ ‘Phooey. Don’t go soft on me, Marlowe.’.
1960		J. Brosnan Long Season 67: When those same twenty thousand cry, ‘Ptui, you let us down,’ you have to feel bad.
1961		Beano 20 May n.p.: Phooey! Don’t worry.
1964		R. Buehler Annotated Collection of Obscene Humor 31: A chicken, phooey!
1974		(con. 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 210: Phooey! Handle a guy like you any day.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 74: ‘Phooey,’ I said. ‘He was a peckerhead’.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 296: phooey (fooey, fooy, pfui). A generalized exclamation of disgust, contempt, or disbelief.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 110: A very dubious conception indeed of goodness. Pshaw, phooey and huh.

2. used adjectivally.

1934		T. Minehan Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1976) 131: I don’t try that until everything goes phooey.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Don’t Dream’ in Hollywood Detective July 🌐 How long do you think I could hold my [...] ratings if I went on the air with fooey material.

3. (US Black) as n.

1941

Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 8 Mar. 7/2: That kid you gave that dough to for a trip to Boys Town turned out to be a phooey.