bogus, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bogus n.

[note OED: ‘Dr S. Willard, of Chicago [...] quotes from the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph of July 6 and Nov. 2, 1827, the word bogus as a n. applied to an apparatus for coining false money. Mr Eber D. Howe, who was then editor of that paper, describes in his Autobiography (1878) the discovery of such a piece of mechanism in the hands of a gang of coiners at Painesville, in May 1827; it was a mysterious-looking object, and some one in the crowd styled it a “bogus”, a designation adopted in the succeeding numbers of the paper. Dr Willard considers this to have been short for “tantrabogus”, a word familiar to him from his childhood, and which in his father’s time was commonly applied in Vermont to any ill-looking object. He points out that “tantarabobs” is given in Halliwell, Dict. of Archaic and Provincial Words (1847), as a Devonshire word for the devil; bogus seems thus to be related to bogy etc.’ Farmer, Americanisms Old New (1889), posits an Italian swindler called Borghese, working across the southwest US distributing fictitious notes, cheques etc, c.1837; this surname was gradually changed to Borges and thence bogus. The writer J.R. Lowell, also cited by Farmer, opted for Fr. bagasse, the refuse of sugar cane after the juice was extracted]

1. (US) a machine used to produce counterfeit money; also attrib.

1827		Painesville (OH) Tel. 6 July n.p.: That he never procured the casting of a Bogus at one of our furnaces. [Ibid.] 2 Nov. The eight or ten boguses which have been for some time in operation [DA].
1844		Spirit of Times (Philad.) 12 Oct. n.p.: A bogus press for making counterfeit money [DA].
1850		Frontier Guardian 23 Jan. n.p.: We employed that same Bill Hickman to ferret out a bogus press and a gang of counterfeiters [...] A part of the bogus machine has been found [DA].
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. counterfeit money; also attrib.

1838		N.Y. Daily Express 7 Dec. 2/3: [A counterfeiter’s] gang are known in Canada by the title of koniackers, and among them, in conversation, they have adopted a set of slang phrases, such as ‘smashing’ (counterfeiting) ‘conack’ [sic] or ‘pictures’ (counterfeit notes) ‘bogus’ (counterfeit coin) &c.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 41: bogus money. Counterfeit silver coin. A few years since, a large quantity of this coin was in circulation at the West, where it received this name.
c.1858		J.H. Green Secret Band of Brothers 131: He assured me his trade was ‘bogus;’ that you had supplied him with cut quarters, which no other person dare offer, and that he had done well even with them. (Cut money was, at an early date, used as change; one dollar cut in four pieces answered as twentyfive cents each.).
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America II 38: I have plainly convicted them of simony; of a hereditary tendancy to passing Bogus notes.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 52: I always had bogus money in plenty [...] I controlled the market for ‘coney’. [Ibid.] 92: A few dollars of his hard-earned good money (mixed generally with a sprinkling of the bogus).
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 10: Bogus, bad money.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 10/2: Bogus money, stolen securities or checks that are non-negotiable.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 29: bogus money Counterfeit coins.

3. (US) a fake, a spurious imitation.

1857		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) XLIX 278: Don’t run your bogus on me this time.
1906		Nat. Police Gazette 11 Aug. 6: He’d had a bogus of the genuine pin made before the job was pulled off [HDAS].
1944		Chicago Daily News 13 Nov. 1/2: The broadcast [...] was officially described in London as ‘obviously an enemy propaganda story’ and ‘a complete bogus.’ .
1973		in National Lampoon Jan. 23: Hey man, you really got strung out. Someone handed you a bogus [HDAS].

4. (UK black) a lie, a ‘story’.

1999

(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 133: I had to tell them some bogus that you were sick.