Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) fraudulent, fake, trying too hard, disappointing.

1988		Too $hort ‘Cusswords’ 🎵 Played-out fake-ass simple simon / I never understood one word you said.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 273: I got a fake-ass family. They’re as fake as fuck.
2003		Urban Dict. 🌐 6 April: wanksta – A fake-ass foo trying to be hard.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 18: ‘You didn’t get arrested, did you?’ she asked. Yeah, by some fake-ass cops, he thought.

(US Und.) a beggar who poses as a cripple to elicit sympathy.

1909

I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 110: The ‘fake bandagers,’ who pose as cripples, go to the shopping district, where they work upon the sympathies of the women.

(US) a roll of money in which small bills (or even paper cut to the right size) are surrounded, for ostentation’s sake, by one large one.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1903		S. Clapin New Dict. Americanisms.