foo

See also: Appendix:Variations of "foo"

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fuː/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophone: -fu

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)

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

• foobar

Related terms

• FUBAR

Etymology 3

A minced form of fuck.

Interjection

foo

1. Expression of disappointment or disgust.

   Oh foo – the cake burnt!

Synonyms

• (expression of disgust): darn, drat

Etymology 4

Alternative forms

• foo'

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

• rfc:3092, Etymology of "Foo", Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

See also

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

• 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)

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

• fo

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɸɔː]
• Hyphenation: foo

Adverb

foo

1. in, inside

References

• Shirley Burtch (1983) Diccionario Huitoto Murui (Tomo I) (Linguistica Peruana No. 20)‎^[1] (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.‎^[2], Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), page 145

Scots

Etymology

See also hoo.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fuː/

Adverb

foo (not comparable)

1. how
2. why

References

• “foo, adv.” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.

Tetum

Verb

foo

1. to stink