Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) rubbish, nonsense; a stupid false person.

1930		El Paso Eve. Post (TX) 3 Sept. 9/1: His recent decision over Speedy Dado was a lot of phonus-balonus.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 35: Of course this message is nothing but the phonus bolonus.
1933		(ref. to 1916) W. Winchell in Havana Eve. Telegram 12 July 2/3: That Woolcott says he would like to know the origin of the word ‘phoney.’ Well, no dictionary is certain, either. The first time we heard it was in 1916, long before Al Smith helped popularize ‘baloney.’ In 1916 Broadwayites would say: ‘That’s a lotta phoney baloney!’.
1946		T. Thursday ‘Once Upon a Crime’ in Crack Detective Sept. 🌐 Come on, Cap; forget the phonus-balonus and let’s have the lowdown.
1955		Mad mag. Feb. 28: Here’s where the real phoney baloney begins!
1959		Hudson Rev. XII:1 144: As you see, a card, and one who has no use for what he calls ‘phonus balonus’.
1965		Fresno Bee (CA) 18 Apr. 22/3: Al Smith never looked at the record any closer, when his political opponents out out the phonus balonus, than the more recent Democrats did in putting the microscope on their republican cousins.
1975		Post-Crescent (Appleton, WI) 4 May 93/1: By the time your roof begins leaking, your fast-talking friend will be counties away, working the same phonus balonus on someone else.
1984		Salina Jrnl (KS) 27 July 4/3: [headline] Democrats’ oratory vintage ‘phonus balonus’.
1992		G.P. Garrett Sorrows of Fat City 170: His bold assault on the dwarf and giant clichés of our life and art has led to the exposure of the heart of phonus balonus.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 110: This supposed meeting is the full phonus balonus.

2. (US) a stupid false person.

1937		C. Odets Golden Boy I i: Ah, that Kaplan! That phonus bolonus!
1939		B. Appel Power-House 256: Joe, the phoney baloney!
1974		T. Roszak Pontifex 199: He was just an ol’ phonus-balonus. He didn’t have no revolutionary following that guy.
1983		L. Sanders Sixth Commandment 262: ‘I just told you he puts on a good show.’ ‘The guy’s a phonus-balonus.’.