foo
nounEtymology
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.
- derived from 府
Definitions
Alternative form of fu
Alternative form of fu: an administrative subdivision of imperial China; the capital of such divisions.
A metasyntactic variable used to represent an unspecified entity. If part of a series of…
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”).
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Expression of disappointment or disgust.
- Oh foo – the cake burnt!
Pronunciation spelling of fool.
A mock deity of early science fiction fandom
A mock deity of early science fiction fandom; a fannish ghod.
- I imagine it must be pretty discouraging to send out a whole issue of a fanzine and get nothing back but a couple of poctsarcds.^([sic]) I wouldn't know, thank Foo.
- You’ll never guess what Wollheim’s men have found!¶ A forest full of perfect echo-flowers.¶ Honest to Foo! He says ”Salad!” to them,¶ And they obediently answer back, “Salad!”
The neighborhood
- neighborFUBAR
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for foo. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA