furphy

fur·phy

F f

Transcription

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- UK Pronunciation
- UK IPA
- [fur-fee]
- /ˈfɜr fi/
- /fˈɜːfi/

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- [fur-fee]
- /ˈfɜr fi/

Definitions of furphy word

noun plural furphy a false report; rumor. 1
noun furphy (Australia, slang) a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story. 1
noun furphy a rumour or fictitious story 0
noun furphy Joseph, pen name Tom Collins. 1843–1912, Australian author. His works include the classic Australian novel Such is Life (1903) and The Buln-Buln and the Brolga (1948) 0
noun furphy (Slang) (Australia) a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story. 0

See all 5 definitions of furphy

Information block about the term

Origin of furphy

First appearance:

before 1910

One of the 15% newest English words

1910-15; after Furphy carts water and rubbish carts manufactured by the Furphy family of Shepparton, Victoria, and used during World War I; compare parallel semantic development of scuttlebutt

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Furphy

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

Full grammatical hierarchy of Furphy

furphy popularity

A pretty common term. Usually people know it’s meaning, but prefer to use a more spread out synonym. About 48% of English native speakers know the meaning and use word.

According to our data about 73% of words is more used. This is a rare but used term. It occurs in the pages of specialized literature and in the speech of educated people.

furphy usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer