phony

Major job-search platforms say they are focused on what’s phony and sowing mistrust.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 5, 2026

While Heller was built on phony history, it reflected a genuine, hard-fought shift in public understanding.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

One of the timeworn accusations against Holden Caulfield is hypocrisy: This guy calls everyone else phony, but he’s just as phony!

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2026

Even today, students can tell you that the biggest phony in the book is Holden himself.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026

But he still thought I was a phony.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac

They would have to embark last—eliminating the phonies who game the system to sit near the front, facilitating an orderly exit.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026

Influencers and phonies and maybe even the occasional real journalist prattle on in the backgrounds of scenes telling people what to think and do, often making things worse.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2025

Mr. Musk trashed Mr. Zuckerberg’s Instagram as a dwelling for fakers and phonies in a Wednesday evening post to Twitter.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 6, 2023

CNN later debunked his claims, noting that “the ‘CNN Ukraine’ and ‘CNN Afghanistan’ accounts behind the tweets are both phonies that have been suspended by Twitter for violating its policy against impersonation.”

From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2022

He was a man trying to create greatness, and the phonies were too ignorant to recognize anything beyond their own limitations.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos

Angelenos can spot a phony from far away — and Spencer, you’re turning out to be phonier than the fake drama on any of the television shows you ever appeared in.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026

Arthur Julian, a writer on “F Troop,” noted that “real audiences sound phonier than the laugh track. Sometimes they freeze up and act unnatural.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026

But the screenplay, by David Benioff, Billy Ray, and Darren Lemke, can’t stand that level of scrutiny, and the closer we get to the actors mouthing their clunky, mock-allegorical dialogue, the phonier they seem.

From Slate ● Oct. 9, 2019

Corny Collins, the dance-show host, should be good-looking in a phonier, slicker way than Steven Beckingham is here, for instance.

From New York Times ● Jul. 16, 2010

The phonier it got, the more she cried.

From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger

In my experience, the phoniest actors are masters of sincerity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2021

When it came to decorating his own new home, he threw out all the rules of good taste and embraced the phoniest of fakes.

From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2014

What would be the phoniest thing of all would be for me to all of the sudden not be his friend.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2011

NEWPORT, Wales -- So it was, inevitably and predictably, the phoniest of conflicts.

From Golf Digest ● Sep. 30, 2010

It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life.

From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger

She was indicted for inducing her client, convicted Kidnaper John William Irwin, to testify falsely in an effort to prove that Sinatra phonied up the kidnaping as a publicity stunt.

From Time Magazine Archive

Every time I go anywhere now it's all phonied up.

From Time Magazine Archive