foo
Expression of disappointment or disgust.
Interjection
- Expression of disappointment or disgust.
- Oh foo – the cake burnt!
Origin
A minced form of fuck.
Synonyms
Noun computing, engineering
- 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.
- Alternative letter-case form of Foo (“placeholder god”).
Origin
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 Buddhist chant om mani padme hum, possibly under the influence of WWII military slang FUBAR, which had been repopularized by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
Related
Derived
Noun alt of, alternative
- Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.
Origin
From Mandarin 府 (fǔ).
Forms
Noun alt of, pronunciation spelling
- Pronunciation spelling of fool.
- [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...
Forms
Related
foo dog foo fighter foo-foo foo-foo band foo-foo juice foo lion foo young foo yung