baloney
baloney Lexical Profile
baloney Game Scores & Validity
• noun
North American Foolish or deceptive talk; nonsense.
"The politician's speech was full of empty promises and baloney."
North American A large smoked sausage made of finely minced meat; an alternative phonetic spelling of bologna.
"He packed a simple baloney and cheese sandwich for his school lunch."
Word Nuance & Usage
While pronounced identically, the spelling 'baloney' is typically preferred for the informal sense of nonsense, whereas 'bologna' is the standard spelling for the meat.
• Rhymes for baloney
Word Origin & Etymology
An Americanized phonetic spelling of 'Bologna', referring to the Italian city and its namesake sausage. The colloquial meaning of 'nonsense' arose in 1920s American slang, possibly from the idea that the sausage was made of cheap or mixed scraps.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.