foo

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See also: Appendix:Variations of "foo"

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Mandarin 府 (fǔ).

Noun

foo (plural foos)

  1. (historical, obsolete) Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.

Etymology 2

foo is presumably based on the fu character (fú, 福)
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Wikipedia

From Chinese 福 (fú, “fortunate; prosperity, good luck”), via its use as 福星 (Fúxīng, “Jupiter”) in Chinese statues of the Three Lucky Stars, picked up from c. 1935 as a nonsense word in Bill Holman's Smokey Stover comic strip, whence it was picked up by Pogo, Looney Tunes, and others. Used by Jack Speer as the name of a mock god of mimeography in the 1930s.

Popularized in computing contexts by the Tech Model Railroad Club's 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language, which incorporated it into a parody of the Hindu chant om mani padme hum, possibly under the influence of WWII military slang FUBAR, which had been repopularized by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

Noun

foo (uncountable)

  1. (programming) A metasyntactic variable used to represent an unspecified entity. If part of a series of such entities, it is often the first in the series, and followed immediately by bar.
    Suppose we have two objects, foo and bar.
  2. (fandom slang) Alternative letter-case form of Foo (“placeholder god”)
Derived terms
Related terms

Etymology 3

A minced form of fuck.

Interjection

foo

  1. Expression of disappointment or disgust.
    Oh foo – the cake burnt!
Synonyms

Etymology 4

Alternative forms

Noun

foo (plural foos)

  1. (slang) Pronunciation spelling of fool.
    • 2020, J. Lewis Johnson, A Dark Night in the Fieldhouse:
      [page 10:] "I knew you'd be scared," Reggie laughed. "What are you doin', foo? You must be crazy. You don't scare me." "Then why did you almost fall out of that chair? I scare everyone."
      [page 38:] "This is coo," said Fred. "It's almost like being there." "We are there, foo!" said Reggie as the boys slapped palms.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eric S[teven] Raymond, editor (2003 December 29), “foo”, in The Jargon File, version 4.4.7.
  2. ^ "The History of Bill Holman", Smokey-Stover.com, Smokey Stover LLC – article by nephew of Bill Holman
  3. ^ "Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion"

See also

Multiword terms containing "foo" (probably unrelated to the above etymologies)

Anagrams

Middle English

Etymology 1

From the oblique stem of Old English ġefāh.

Noun

foo (plural foos)

  1. Alternative form of fo

Etymology 2

From Old English fā, variant of fāh.

Adjective

foo

  1. Alternative form of fo

Adverb

foo

  1. Alternative form of fo

Murui Huitoto

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Adverb

foo

  1. in, inside

References

  • Shirley Burtch (1983) Diccionario Huitoto Murui (Tomo I) (Linguistica Peruana No. 20)‎ (in Spanish), Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 91
  • Katarzyna Izabela Wojtylak (2017) A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia.‎, Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), page 145

Tetum

Verb

foo

  1. to stink
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