faux

[foh]

adjective

1. artificial or imitation; fake.

   a brooch with faux pearls.

Word History and Origins

Origin of faux¹

1670–80; < French; Old French fals < Latin falsus false

Example Sentences

His company has been developing illumination with higher-than-usual amounts of blue-enriched light, using faux windows that give the illusion of a blue sky outside and faux skylights that show blue sky with a virtual sun.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He flings his lunch against the wall, shattering a piece of Nancy Reagan’s china and leaving a trail of ketchup and hamburger grease on the wallpaper and faux gilt sconce recently procured from Home Depot.

Read more on Salon

“With its classical columns, mirrors, faux gold and white marble everything, the Trinity compound’s look is ‘Gone With the Wind’ meets Caesars Palace,” The Times wrote in 1998.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

And then there is “faux pas,” which is an embarrassing blunder or lapse of good manners.

Read more on Literature

With the American West no longer lonely and unpopulated, the wind-scattered weeds have collided, quite literally, with the faux mansions and exurban retreats of transplants escaping the winter chill of New England or Canada.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• ersatz 
• fake 
• false 
• imitation 
• imitative 
• unreal