foo
English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /fuː/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -uː
- Homophone: -fu
Etymology 1
From Mandarin 府 (fǔ).
Noun
foo (plural foos)
- (historical, obsolete) Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.
Etymology 2
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,[1][2][3] whence it was picked up by Pogo, Looney Tunes, and others. Used by Jack Speer as the fannish ghod of mimeography. 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,[1] possibly under the influence of WWII military slang FUBAR, which had been repopularized by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
Noun
foo (uncountable)
- (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.
- (fandom slang) Alternative letter-case form of Foo (“placeholder god”)
Derived terms
- foobar
Related terms
- FUBAR
Etymology 3
A minced form of fuck.
Interjection
foo
- Expression of disappointment or disgust.
- Oh foo – the cake burnt!
Synonyms
- (expression of disgust): darn, drat
Alternative forms
- foo'
Noun
foo (plural foos)
- (slang) Pronunciation spelling of fool.
References
- “foo”, The Jargon File
- "The History of Bill Holman", Smokey-Stover.com, Smokey Stover LLC – article by nephew of Bill Holman
- "Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion"
- rfc:3092, Etymology of "Foo", Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
See also
- foo dog
- foo fighter
- foo-foo
- foo-foo band
- foo-foo juice
- foo lion
- foo young
- foo yung
Anagrams
- oof
Middle English
Etymology 1
From the oblique stem of Old English ġefāh.
Noun
foo (plural foos)
- Alternative form of fo
Etymology 2
From Old English fā, variant of fāh.
Adjective
foo
- Alternative form of fo
Adverb
foo
- Alternative form of fo
Murui Huitoto
Alternative forms
- fo
Etymology
From Proto-Huitoto-Ocaina *ho.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [ˈɸɔː]
- Hyphenation: foo
Adverb
foo
- 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
- to stink